The Legend Of Wyatt Gene Starwind
by Chibi Milliardo Peacecraft
Summary: This is the complete story of the legendary lawmen who came to Sentinel III to break up the Kei Pirates for good and the battle at the Heiphong Corral. Rated R For Violence. *Still In Progress*
1. Wyatt Gene Starwind Arrives

Note: I do not own Outlaw Star or anything concerning of the legendary Wyatt Earp. This is a fic I crossed between the two. Thank you and enjoy. ^_^  
  
The economic explosion following the Heiphong War created an unprecedented nation-wide market for crops. Previously worthless cattle running wild throughout Blue Heaven were gathered into herds and driven south to the railheads in Heiphong. Fortunes were made as cowtowns sprang up on the prairies, wide-open centers of Commerce and vice, their streets choked with heavily-armed young men fresh from the cattle drives. In those days the correct term for a cowhand was 'drover'. 'Kei Pirate', like 'outlaw', was originally an insult implying deviant sexuality and was rarely used. But these invading outlaws were a wild breed for soon shootings and wholesale drunken riots became so frequent that ordinary citizens could not walk down the street. In fact at their height the cowtowns had very high murder rates than modern Blue Heaven and there was no law but that of the castor.  
  
Straight up at 95 yards or eye-to-eye at point blank range, the greatest outlaw of all time was the fastest gunman of the west named Vash, better known as Vash the Stampede, the prince of bullet ranges. But Vash worked his trade on the side of justice, donuts and as marshal of the cowtowns like Sentinel III he became a legend, the one man who stood between law and chaos. Vash the Stampede's fame spread nationwide but his end came quietly in the spring of '99' when a strange drifter put a bullet through the back of his neck, apparently for no other reason than he wanted to kill a legend.  
  
In Farfallas meanwhile, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind and Zonba were becoming known as fast-guns. But their fame had nothing to do with gunfights. Starwind and Zonba operated more like modern policemen, using teamwork and persuasion to keep order. Still, sometimes things got out of hand. But Gene had a guardian angel among his side. "Doc" Fred Luo was the son of an northern bounty business inspector. Trained in Blue Heaven, he had embarked on a career as a society physician when he contracted Lunger. Advised to practice in the east where it was thought the climate and clean air would prolong his life, Fred soon realized it was all only a matter of time and gave up physician to become a professional gambler and gunman...  
  
Others headed west. Bent on becoming an actress. Valeria Marcus defied her wealthy and very proper family to run away with a traveling theatrical company, braving the perils of the frontier on her own. Dangerous as this might seem, it was another age and women were hardly rare, their presence so cherished that they could travel virtually anywhere in the west in peaceful harmony. At about this time the Heiphong rangers, having eliminated the commanche threat, turned their attention to the outlaws marauding along the Grande, cleaning up the border strip in 8 years of hard riding. Those that could not indict or convict the rangers put down in their black books, letting it be known that they could either leave Heiphong or face summary execution. This resulted in the mass migration of the absolute dregs of the Heiphong underworld to the most dangerous, uncivilized part of the entire county, the northeast of "The Sentinel Territory. Harsh and inhospitable, savaged in turn by the outlaws and Kei bandits, this had always been an accursed place, a virtual hell on earth where it was thought life itself could never prosper, much more civilization. Then in 1899, a prospector named Kyokan set off alone into the Mountains of Blue Heaven. Friends told him he was crazy, that the only thing he would find in this forsaken place would be his tombstone. Instead he found gold, lots of it, and overnight the town of Sentinel III sprang up. Mining taking out millions in rubies. Land Value shot sky-high and spectactulors and gamblers cardsharks and pimps and whores and opportunists of all nations scrambled in by the thousands to make Sentinel III king of the boomtowns, so rich that the latest Farfallas fashions, hard to find even in the biggest cities, were sold there by the wagonload from the makeshift storefronts.  
  
Meanwhile, the exile Heiphongians had banded together to form the nucleaus of an organized gang. Seizing control of the surrounding countryside they robbed stagecoaches at will while the big absentee business interests employed them as tax collectors and strongarm outlaws. But the backbone of their trade remained border rustling, periodic raids into Blue Heaven to steal cattle while engaging in what was described as a virtual bridle of murder and violence. The raids became so frequent and so bloody that the Sentinel III government protested to President O'Malley, prompting heated debate in congress. He declared that the only possible way of bringing law and order was to send in the army but in the wake of the Heiphong War reconstruction federal intervention in civilian affairs was politically impossible. With only some 250 members, the gang was an elite body of gunmen, known by the black and blue silk sashes they wore around their waists. Fiercely proud of their terrifying reputation to no one, they were a law unto themselves, finally emerging as one of the earliest examples in history of Full-scale organized crime. They called themselves "The Kei Pirates".  
  
Burning daylight, hard reality. A squad of uniformed officers ride through the Heiphong desert, Castor rifles glinting in the sun. Approaching the mouth of the canyon, their hard bitten captain signals them to stop, leaning down to study a jumble of hoofprints on the ground. He turns to the anxious looking officer on his right. "It is them, only an hour south." The captain said.  
  
"But this is the border, sir." The anxious officer said.  
  
"You saw what those animals did at the corral. You think a goddamn border is going to stop me? No, I am going to see them suffer for what they did! I swear it on my soul!"The captain said as he spurs his horse and they ride on at a gallop, plunging into the canyon... The full moon throws fantastic shadows across the high walls of the canyon as the officers ride through. At the bend the captain halts them. The young one starts to speak but the captain shushes him, peering into the darkness. "Turn around! Fast! Now!" They turned but suddenly Castor Gunfire erupts from the shadows all around them, blasting them from the saddle, each powder flash lighting up the canyon for an instant, freezing each victim in the moment of their death. Then, just as abruptly the firing stops, leaving only the captain, the anxioused officer and the colonel alive. Dazed and bloody, they struggle to their feet as 6 armed figures emerge from the shadows, walking into the moonlight toward them. With broad-brim hats swept up in front, silk scarves and black and blue sashes, high boots and silver-studded gunleather, they are the Kei Pirates: Old Man McDougal, the ageless gray-beared leader, Ron and Harry McDougal, the sons of Old Man McDougal. Marx, a Heiphong half-breed. And Harry's men, Terry and Leo with an air of something very strange. "Tell them to get on their knees." Old Man McDougal said.  
  
"andare su tuo ginocchio." Marx chanted to the victims in Italian. The others kneel down but the Captain remains on his feet, steely-eyed, defiant. "He will not kneel. He is proud." Marx said.  
  
"So how did you like our little Carry-on over at the ranch? Kind of hit the spot did it not?" Marx said.  
  
"Animals! Butchers!" The captain muttered.  
  
"Hey, somebody get that stick on his knees." McDougal said. his son, Ron casually fires his castor rifle into the captain's legs, dropping him into a splayed lotus position as he nods to Old Man McDougal. "ringraziare" Harry McDougal said in Italian.  
  
"They call me Old Man McDougal. I am what you might call the found of the Kei Pirates. Now maybe you have not heard, but we skylark through your country just about any time we damn well please and big-hat, crummy looking free holes stumbling around in the dark are not allowed. Heiphong po-lice, huh? Think you are bad medicine, do you not? Hell, I have let stronger stuff run down my feet. So next time we come you better step aside. Get in our hair again, we will saw your shins off with daggers and shove them in your graves. I am not kidding neither. You have been told. Now get out." Old Man McDougal releases the others as they rise and dash away but Death Rob stops the captain. "Hold up, chief. I got a joke I wanna tell you before you leave."  
  
"tu sapare tu uccidere gli" The captain spoke grimly in Italian as Terry smiles.   
  
"He says he knows you are killing him."  
  
"Now how did he figure that out?" Ron McDougal asked.  
  
"He say he is not afraid, someone wil avenge him. A sick bounty hunter." Leo said.  
  
"A sick bounty hunter? What the hell..." Death Rob muttered as he hears scattered chuckles from the others. Marx frowns and draws his castor pistol as the Captain repeats his words. "Something, I do not know, he talks fancy, you know, a priest is like, "a sick bounty hunter who sits ---"  
  
"That is not what he said, you asshole. Your Italian is wore than your english. Come on, let's get this over with."Terry interrupted as he takes aim. The captain sneers, but suddenly in full english. "You go to hell, Kei Pirates!"  
  
"You first." Marx said as he fires his castor pistol into the captain's head, sending him to his death.  
  
Dawn has now approached the desert with castor gunshots as the Kei Pirates fire their pistols and shout, running their stolen herd out of a draw into a clearing where the Kanes await. "Looks like you had a party!" Butch Kane said.  
  
"Oh, we had a big time!" Old Man McDougal said as he, his sons, and Marx rein up and look out at the sun rising magnificently from the desert floor. The Old man stretches his legs in the stirrups, taking out a wine flask. "Ain't this sweet? That is why I stay out here. Thank you." Old man said as he raises the flask and drinks while "Death" Rob turns to Marx. "What did the Captain mean, a sick bounty hunter is gonna get us? Did not make no sense."  
  
"He was just quoting himself "Behold a pale bounty hunter and the one that sat on him was Death and Hell followed with him." "Death" Rob said.  
  
"Well now that is a little more like it."  
  
A white horse, a fabulous thoroughbred stallion, rears and neighs on an open flat-car where it is tethered with 2 near-identical geldings. A young man tried to pet it as a strong-featured, faired man appears, quieting the horse. Tall and slim in a black frock coat and black flat-brim hat, he moves with assurance and grace, a man in control. This is "Wyatt" Gene Starwind. "Dear Governor Ishigaki-- in your directing action against the Kei Pirates,stop. Beg to inform have twice sent deputies to serve warrants on Kei Pirate suspects, stop. Nothing to show for it but 4 dead deputies, stop. Short of deputizing Blue Heaven army are at loss---" The Marshal said as the deputy next to him points at Gene. "The tall man over there, Marshal. I am not sure but I think that is "Wyatt" Gene Starwind."  
  
""Wyatt" Gene Starwind? Oh, right, Farfallas." Back down the platform Gene Starwind strokes the stallion gently, looking up as the Marshall approaches. "Mr. Starwind? My name is McCoy. I am the Sentinel III Marshal for---"  
  
"Forget it." Gene interrupted.  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
"I said forget it, answer is no. I do not want the job and that is final. I am going to Sentinel III and nothing short of dying is going to stop me. Good day." Gene explained.  
  
"But wait, you do not understand---"  
  
"No Marshal, you do not understand. I am through with lawing, I am through with the whole Proposition. Forever. I did my duty, now I would like to get on with my life. That is if you do not mind. Good day now." Gene interrupted once again.  
  
"I see, off to strike it rich, huh. All right, fine, wish you luck. Tell you this though, I never was a rich man yet and did not wind up with a guilty conscience." McCoy said.  
  
"Already got a guilty conscience, might as well have the money to go with it too." Gene said as McCoy retreats. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind turns back to his horse testily. "Boy, I would know that scarred up face anywhere." Gene turns around. His friends stand behind him, smiling. Though James Hawking is a little young and tougher. Aisha Clan-Clan, tall and a bit more tougher then the young Hawking, they are otherwise right down to their style of dress. Gene breaks into a grin, his cool replaced with a boyish enthusiasm. "Well how do we look?" Hilda said.  
  
"Hey! James Hawking! My goodness! Hilda! You look great! Both of you!" Gene said as James Hawking girlfriend Hilda, tall, fierce, and american, steps up with Melfina in tow. "Gene, you remember Hilda." Jim said.  
  
"Goodness, well he better." Hilda said while Gene hugs her, laughs.  
  
"Hilda-girl...and Melfina! You are so lovely. I am at your feet, darling. Just at your feet. Guess it is only right. Father always said you were the cutest."  
  
"But she doted on the frowner."  
  
"Gene, I could not find a single store that any laudanum-" Melfina said.  
  
"Melfina, they are here! Folks this is Melfina but you can call her Mrs. Starwind if you prefer."  
  
"Mrs. Starwind? Land of love, it finally happened! Melfina it is a pleasure!" Jim said as they all exchange greetings and hugs and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind positively beams. "Boy, I sure been dreaming about this. Since forever! Wait!" Gene turns them toward the stationhouse window, arranging them in a group and pointing to their reflection. They stand silently, studying themselves, together as a family. Gene still shaking his head happily, drinking it in. "All right, now let us go make our fortune."  
  
"Wyatt" Gene Starwind's black horses tied to the rear, crosses the majestic, forbidding Sentinel III desert with it's red volcanic rocks and the giant cactus dotting the landscape so mysteriously, like huge, spiny hieroglyphics.... The Starwind family sit at a camp but the river under a clear night sky dripping with stars. After dinner. The women, and James Hawking sit by the fire. Aisha Clan-Clan petting her cat. Hilda sits behind James Hawking, twirling his hair, turning to Melfina. "Do you not love their hair? They all have the same hair." Hilda said. Just then "Wyatt" Gene Starwind appears on his stallion, galloping across the moonlit plain toward them, sitting his horse like a centaur. It is clear he is a magnificient horseman. Jim smiles. "Look at him go, will you? I tell you, that is the real Gene, born in the saddle."  
  
"Oh, he can go all right." Melfina said.  
  
"Can he then?" Hilda asked.  
  
"Rather ride then eat." Melfina said as the women cackle lasciviously. Jim groans at Hilda. "Try to be a lady, will you?" Jim said as Gene rides up and dismounts, unsaddling the horse. "Give him some good excercise? Sure some stud. Some string in fact. What are you gonna do, race them?" Aisha Clan-Clan asked.  
  
"Hope so. Clean up with this boy." Gene said as Hilda turns to Melfina, fishing in her bag. "Melfina dear, did you say you needed some laudanum? I have a bottle right here. Just be careful. It is full of hop."  
  
"You are a lifesaver! Do not worry, I just get headaches sometimes." Melfina said as Gene leads the horse away the women get up, Hilda and Aisha going to the river with dishes, Melfina crossing to the wagon. James Hawking watches her appreciatively. "Mighty good. I wonder where he found her. Same place we found ours probably." Jim said. At the other end of camp Melfina climbs into the wagon and lies down. Gene appears and starts to stroke her head. "Come up to the fire, Melfina."  
  
"I think I will just lie down awhile." Melfina said as a coyote starts howling from the farther darkness. "Long as I live I will never get used to that sound." she shuttered.  
  
"They are just lonely that is all. Hell, I howl to myself sometimes."  
  
"You get lonely?" Melfina asked. She seemed genuinely surprised. Gene looks genuinely confused. Over at the fire, James Hawking hugs and mashes Hilda playfully. "Come up, Hilda. Come up here, dear."  
  
"Stop..." Hilda said as she fights loose. Gene walks up, sits down, shaking his gold watch. "Look at that. Busted. Brand new money ward, too. 45 years old and I do not even have a decent watch. About time I started looking out for myself."  
  
"Well here we are a family again." Jim Hawking said. "Been so long plain forgot how good it feels. I want to thank you for that, Gene. All your doing."  
  
"We are going to do it, guys. Going to get ours. Feel it in my bones. All we have to do is keep our eyes on that brass ring." Gene said as Aisha lies back, looking up at the nightsky. "Look at all those stars. Bet you can see every star there is. Practical touch them. Kind of makes you think, you know? I mean you look up and you think the gods made all that but he still remembered to make a ctarl ctarl like myself. Kind of flattering really. Hey, Gene, do you believe in the gods? No, come on, really, do you?"  
  
"Maybe, yes. Hell, I do not know." Gene said.  
  
"Well what do you think happens when you die?"  
  
"Got me, Aisha. Something. Nothing. I do not know."  
  
"I read this book, book about spiritualism..."  
  
"Oh, goodness, here she goes..." Jim muttered.  
  
"...They said a lot of people, when they are dying, they see this light, like in a tunnel. They say it is the light leading you to heaven."  
  
"Really? What about hell? They got a sign or what?" Gene asked.  
  
"Hey, Gene, God damn it, I am serious!" Aisha argued.  
  
"Well that is your problem. Hey Jim, see anything of Fred Luo while you were in the saloon?"  
  
"Hit a streak when we left. Him and Twilight Suzuka." Jim said.  
  
"Uh, that woman." Hilda muttered from the stream.  
  
"I miss Fred. I miss that young rip."  
  
"Hell, I don't."  
  
"Neither do I."  
  
"He makes me laugh."  
  
A handsomely appointed saloon. At a corner table, the pot is so rich 3 players have folded leaving Gwen Khan, an old, sullen, tough-looking gambler, facing gaunt, elegant Fred "Doc" Luo. Full of northern refinement and languid, almost feline grace. Fred has such unerring style and aplomb that he makes his constant tubercular coughing sound as if he is merely clearing his throat. Khan leans forward, seething with impatience: "I said that is 5oo wong to you, Luo. In or out?"  
  
"500 wong? Sly boots, must be a peach of a hand." Fred Luo said as Twilight Suzuka, Luo's former violent rival enters, refilling his engraved silver stirrup cup. She has a very well accent. "Here, Luo."  
  
"Bless you darling." Luo said as he puts his arm around her." Suzuka! Are you mad? You are not wearing a bustle. How rude!"  
  
"Oh, for christ's sake! Come on, Luo, are you in or out? God damn it!" Gwen Khan said.  
  
"Well, Gwen Khan, you look like you are just ready to burst. Well call me a fool but I guess I will have to call. Cover your ears, darling." Fred said as covers the bet and shows his hand. "Is that not a daisy?" "Why, you god damn son of a bitch!" Khan shouted as he pounds the poker table. "Khan, just calm down!" The bartender said.  
  
"Shut up! Just take your wong and go. Because I am sick of listening to your simper."  
  
"Now Gwen, are we cross?" Luo asked while leaning forward, revealing an ivory castor gun-butt under his coat.  
  
"Skinny northern lunger, your guns do not impress me. If it was not for those castor guns you would be nothing."  
  
"Why Gwen Khan, what a horrible thing to say! Does this mean you are not my friend anymore? You know, Gwen, if I thought you were not my friend I do not think I could bear it." Now a cheshire cat smile everyone will soon come to know very well steals over to Fred Luo's face as he takes out his nickel-plated .45 Peacemakers and lays them on the table with the bets. "There, now we can be friends again. But remember, Khan, friendship is trust--so please do not hurt me." Fred Luo bats his eyelashes. Khan jumps up, boiling. A long, sweaty moment, then Gwen Khan lunges. Fred Luo springs up, grabbing him by the hair and jabbing his fist into Khan's armpit. Khan screams and doubles over. Fred gives him another as he pulls out his knife. The bartender reaches for the shotgun under the bar. Suzuka pulls her Bokuto from her muff and puts it to her throat. "Touch that gun, I slit your throat off!" She said as the bartender backs off. Suzuka covers the room and Gwen Khan drops to his knees. Oh, my goodness..."  
  
"Does it hurt? A lot? Good." Eyes gleaming cruelly, Fred blows his cigar smoke into Khan's face. Gwen Khan sinks to the floor in a fatal position. Suzuka gathers up the bets as Fred Luo retrieves his guns, looking around the room. Then they both back up the door. "Well, good evening then." Fred and Suzuka exit while the others look down at the groaning Gwen Khan lying in a pool of his own blood. "Judas..." A gambler said while shaking his head. Fred Luo and Twilight Suzuka stride quickly down the boarded sidewalk to the hotel. "I calculate that is the end of this town. And let us not bother about the luggage, darling."  
  
"I been having the young man at the hotel pack us up every night since your winning streak started." Suzuka said as she points to two horses saddled and packed outside the hotel. "My sweet clever Suzu, so that is why you are not wearing a bustle." Fred Luo gives Suzuka a peck on the cheek as they mount and ride off...  
  
A small cottage at the edge of town. As the Starwind group drives up as they see a sobbling woman sitting splay-legged in the middle of the street while her husband tried to comfort her. 2 small children stand alongside them, watching in stunned silence as Kei Pirates Hitoriga, arrogant, and Jukai, dark, heave their furniture and belongings out of the cottage into the street while snarling things like, "shut up...assholes...move it!" The Starwinds stop, staring at this scene in shock, Hilda looking ready to fight as James Hawking restrains her. Hitoriga looks up. "What the hell are you looking at?" James Hawking looks at "Wyatt" Gene Starwind who shakes his head and drive on...  
  
Unlike the dreary, weather-beaten western towns. Sentinel III is new and colorful, part town and mining camp, a wild mixture of brightly painted wooden storefronts and half-finished stone buildings rimmed by clusters of tents and shanties, all perched atop a hill with magnificient view of the desert and the purple heiphong mountains beyond. They hear the vibrant din of hammers and picks, piano players, hurdy-gurdys, clip-clopping horses' hooves, and pealing laughter as the Starwind gang drive up Sentinel III Street, the main drag, lined with saloon after saloon, sidewalks bustling with drovers, miners, chinamen, and sullen gun-toting hard-cases. They pull up in front of the Grand Sentinel III Hotel and step down. Clyde, handsome, well-dressed, wearing an ornate crescent-shaped gold sheriff's badge and a ready smile walks up and shakes hands with the Starwind group. "Newcomers? Name is Clyde, I am Sentinel III County Sheriff. Just hit town?"  
  
"Just this minute. I am "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, these are my friends---"  
  
""Wyatt" Gene Starwind...Farfallas, right?" Clyde interrupted.  
  
"Gave all that up. Going into business now." Gene said.  
  
"Well I am the man to see. Besides Sheriff I am also tax collector, Captain of the hot ice brigade, and chairman of the Non-partisan anti-italian league. A man of many parts. You got a place to stay yet? I also sit on the townlot commission. Got a couple of lovely cottages coming up for rent. Here, let me show you." Clyde said as the Starwinds and Clyde stand on the porch of the very same cottage they saw the Kei Pirates evict the family from. "The one next door and the one across the street are vacant too. Same rent and I will throw in a good cleaning. Believe me, you will not find a better deal within town limits." "Wyatt" Gene Starwind looks enquiringly at his friends. They shrug. He is calling the shots. Gene shrugs back and finally gives them an answer. "Guess we will take all three."  
  
A large stable and coral backing up into a vacant lot. Gene's big horses feed in their stalls while Gene faces the stableboy. "...and easy on the grain. I do not want them too fidgety." Gene said. James Hawking and Aisha Clan-Clan enter with Gilliam, the jovial old town marshal. Shaking hands, all 4 go up Sentinel, taking in the town. "Gene, meet Gilliam, he is town marshal."  
  
"Lot of law around here. Just met the sheriff." Gene said.  
  
"Who, Clyde? He is not no law, only real law around here are the Kei Pirates." Gilliam said.  
  
"The Kei Pirates, yes. I heard of them." Jim said.  
  
"Nobody does nothing without them. They are it. Hell, even the apache are scared of them. There are a couple right there: Swanzo McMasters and Mikey. Can always spot a Kei Pirate, they all wear those black sashes." Gilliam points to Swanzo McMasters and Mikey, a half-breed, standing over by the hotel, joking in sign language. "Look pretty rough." Jim said.  
  
"Just like any other hard cases. Gotta know how to handle them." Gene said.  
  
"Well I am no James West. Way I handle them is just mainly live and let live. That usually answers but even so, gets kind of spooky sometimes. Still somebody has got to do it, I mean how the hell else are you going to walk down the street?"  
  
"Does anybody not raise a stink? What the hell kind of town is this?" Jim muttered.  
  
"Boomtown. Wide open. People grabbing with both hands have not got time for any law and order. In fact the less law the more opportunities there are for making money. Plain fact is the Kei Pirates are good for business." Gilliam said.  
  
"What about all these saloons?" Gene asked.  
  
"Ah, now that is the real motherload in Sentinel III. Up and down Sentinel III street, full blast 24 hours a day. liquor hostesses, Gambling, making money hand over fist. All except the Crystal Palace. On account of the element. Have a man for breakfast in there most days. Regular slaughter house. High-rollers will not go near it. Too bad, nice place." Gilliam said. Gene nods, suddenly very interested as they walk on...  
  
Gene feels the sensual delight of going from hot sun into cool dark as Gene enters, going up to ornate mahogany bar. Though a large, handsome saloon complete with gaming tables, it has only a few patrons on hand. The piano player is playing "Reflection" as bartender Iris appears. "What can I get you?" she asked.  
  
"Let me have one of those cigars." Gene said as Iris hands him one, he lights it up and looks around the bar.  
  
"I am about ready to go home. I wish you all would stop yakking and play cards."  
  
"Kind of nice in here. You run it?"  
  
"I am Iris, owner and operator of Crystal Palace saloon."  
  
""Wyatt" Gene Starwind."  
  
"Yes, right stranger." Iris said.  
  
"I said lay off the queen, you jackass. I swear I am going to slap somebody now." the faro dealer said.  
  
"Well, excuse me for asking, Iris, but is it not kind of dead in here?"  
  
"You do not listen too good, do you?" the dealer complained as Iris points to the table in the corner where Jukai, a plug-ugly outlaw with a big castor rifle ostentatiously in a shoulder holster, steals to a couple of scruffy-looking bounty hunters. "You see that guy at the table?"  
  
"You back that queen again, you son of a bitch, I will blow you right up that wildcat's ass! Do you hear me, huh?"  
  
"That is Jukai. He barged in here one day, he said he was taking over the game, started slapping customers, waving his gun around, scaring off all the high-class players. Only trade comes in here now is just the bums and bounty hunters, just the dregs." Iris explained.  
  
"Why do you not get rid of him and get yourself a straight dealer?" Gene said.  
  
"Well sure, neighbor, easy to say." Iris answered.  
  
"Shit." Jukai snarled at the cigar chomping junior player and slaps him in the cheek. "God damn it, Junior, how many times am I going to tell you to keep that damn cigar out of my face?" Jukai shouted as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind walks up to Jukai as he turns back to the other faro players. "Christ almighty. It is like I am sitting here playing cards with my son's kids or something. You nerve-wrecking sons of bitches." Jukai looks up and sees Gene. "Something on your mind, sir?"  
  
"Just wanted to let you know you are sitting in my chair." Gene answered.  
  
"That a fact?"  
  
"Yes. It is a fact." Jukai looks Gene Starwind over, noting he is unarmed. He stands face-to-face, sneering.  
  
"For a man that does not go heeled you run your mouth kind of reckless."  
  
"Do not need to go heeled to get the bulge on a dub like you."  
  
"That a fact?"  
  
"Yes. It is a fact."  
  
"Well I am real scared."  
  
"Damn right you are scared. I can see it in your eyes." "Wyatt" Gene Starwind steps forward suddenly, eyes cold and hard like a shark. Suddenly realizing he is in way over his head. Jukai shrinks back reflexively, his hand moving towards his rifle. The other players scatter. Gene nods, his voice calm and steady. "Go ahead. Well go ahead. Skin it. Skin that smoke wagon and see what happens."  
  
"Listen mister, I am getting awfully tired--" "Gene apruptly slaps Jukai's face, making his teeth clack together.  
  
"I am getting tired of your gas. Now jerk that castor rifle and get to work." Jukai goes pale. all pretense of courage gone. Gene slaps him again. "I said throw down, boy." Another slap. Jukai stays frozen, blood dripping down his chin. "You going to do something or just stand there and bleed?" Jukai is done. Gene plucks his castor gun away, handing it over to Iris. "No I did not think so. Here, Iris. Keepsake, hang it over the bar. All right, youngster. Out you go..." Gene takes Jukai by the ear, dragging him across the room like an unruly child. At the door he give the ear a twist. "And do not come back. Ever." Jukai winces. Gene shoves him out into the street then turns to Iris casually. "See how easy that was?"  
  
Later. Gene walks up to his brothers at the corner. Well we are off and running. Just acquired us a quarter-interest in a faro game at the Crystal Palace."  
  
"Acquired?" Jim asked.  
  
"So to speak." Gene answered. Down the block, unseen by the Starwind group, a wild-eyed Jukai is advanced on them with a sawed-off castor shotgun. He is within twenty feet. "Why Jukai!" Jukai spins around to see Fred Luo standing in a doorway, smiling. "You madcap," Jukai freezes. "Where are you going with that shotgun?"  
  
"Fred. I did not know you were in town." Jukai said as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind spots Fred and walks up, friends in tow. Though they do not so much as shakes hands, Jim and Aisha sense a strong bond between the two men. "Fred! How the hell are you?"   
  
"Perfect, Gene. Simply perfect."  
  
"Gene? "Wyatt" Gene Starwind?" Jukai thoughted.  
  
"Going into business for ourselves. Gene just got us a Faro game." Aisha said.  
  
"Since when is faro a business?" Fred asked.  
  
"Did you not always say faro was an honest trade?"  
  
"No, I said poker is an honest trade. Only suckers buck the tiger. The odds are all with the house."  
  
"Depends how you look at it. I mean it is not like anybody is holding a castor gun to their heads."  
  
"That is what I love about "Wyatt" Gene Starwind. He can talk himself into anything." Fred Luo said. They laugh. Jukai, frozen stiff, begins to tremble. "Oh sorry, Jukai, I forgot all about you. You can go now. Just leave the shotgun."  
  
"Thank you." Jukai drops the castor shotgun, scuttles off as Clyde approaches affably. "Sheriff Clyde, have you met "Doc" Fred Luo?" Gene asked.  
  
"Piss on you, Gene." Fred sniffed. "Forgive me if I do not shake hands."  
  
"So how is Sentinel III treating you?"  
  
"Fine, fine. But I was thinking, You know what this town really needs is a horse track." Gene answered.  
  
"Actually, you know, that is not a bad idea, send a signal we are growing up."  
  
"Little ahead of yourselves, are you not? This is just a mining camp." Fred said.  
  
"See how everyone dresses? Awfully toney for a mining camp. No, the die is cast, we are growing, be as big as Blue Heaven in a few years. And just as sophisticated."  
  
"I can hardly wait." 


	2. Law And Order Comes To Sentinel III

As if on cue, a bullet whizzes past Clyde's head. Everyone ducks. More castor gunfire as a man holding a bloody hand to his throat reels out the door of the nearby saloon, his gun firing wildly like a sputtering engine before he pitches face onto the sidewalk, dead. Immediately two more man appears: a staggering drunk with a bullet hole in his shoulder: and Ikee Katchin, a leathery plainsman with his castor gun at the ready. A crowd forms as the drunk raises his pistol, bellowing. "You son of a bitch!"  
  
"That is right, keep coming, keep coming..." Ikee said as Fred Luo turns to Clyde. "Very cosmopolitan."  
  
"I know him. That is Ikee Katchin." Gene said.  
  
Suddenly a third man, Shimi, long-haired, hawk-nosed, appears, pistol at the ready, keeping bystanders at bay. "Easy, gentlemen. Private affair..." Shimi said as he spots Gene. "Gene! Fred! Hey!"  
  
"Shimi..."  
  
"Yeah, good. Right about there."  
  
"You bastard!" The drunk now has raised his gun to where it is almost level and Shimi fires. The drunk drops in a heap. Shimi spots Gene. "Hello, Gene! Hi Fred!"  
  
"What was that all about?" Gene asked.  
  
"Drunks. Crawfished a bet, called him a cheater. I saw the whole thing." Shimi answered as Fred turns to Clyde.  
  
"Sheriff, may I present a pair of fellow sophisticates, Shimi and Ikee Katchin? Watch your ear, Shimi." Fred Luo points to his bloody ear. Shimi touches it, sees the blood, gives a silent start. Just then Gilliam arrives, looking weary, facing Ikee and Shimi. "I am afraid I will have to have those castor guns."  
  
"Fair fight. We were legal." Shimi said.  
  
"Sorry, boys. I got to take you before Judge Nubaso Kunono." Gilliam said.  
  
"Well law and order every time, that is us." Ikee said as they hand over their guns while James Hawking looks at the 2 dead men lying in the street, shaking his head. "What kind of town is this?"  
  
"Nice scenery." Shimi said. They look and see a stagecoach stops in the street. Valeria Marcus looks out the window, her little white cat under her chin. She and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind spot each other instantly, both impressed at each other. "That must be the theatrical troupe. There is a show tonight at Sentinel III Hall." Clyde said.  
  
"Hey, Gene, are you going to the show? Maybe we will see you there." Ikee turns to Gilliam. "Will we not?"  
  
"Yes, probably." Gilliam said as he leads them off to jail. Gene and Valeria hold each other's gaze as the coach drives on. Fred Luo smiles.  
  
"Well, an enchanted moment."  
  
Swanzo and Mikey watch as the actors exit the coach for the hotel. Valeria Marcus turns to the first pretty actress. "Interesting little scene. I wonder who that tall man with the scar was."  
  
"Typical frontier type. Long and slim. And those red eyes. Like a wild coyote. You see quite a few of his type out here." The actress said.  
  
"Oh, I want one." Valeria said.  
  
The actors enter, going to the desk while Valeria looks for a place to sit. A slim, well-dressed easterner with a newspaper sits nearby, ignoring her. Seeing this from outside, Mikey instantly barges into the lobby, hoists the easterner out of his chair, and hurls him bodily out into the street. Valeria nods her surprised thanks. Mikey tips his hat shyly, exits as the first actress returns her key as they exchange looks.  
  
A full house, pandemonium. Marx, Terry, Leo and their Kei Pirate entourage from a block in the center rows while Tobigiera, Clyde's bespectacled, slightly effeminate little Deputy makes his timid way down the aisle, looking for a seat midst the off fist-fight and yelling match. Two young cowboys, Hanmio and Yase, call out to him: "Hey, sissy boy!"  
  
"Shut up, Hanmio. Sit here, Tobigiera." Marx beckons. Happy as a lark, Tobigiera takes the seat next to him. Up above, the Starwind group sit in a box, the women are thrilled. "This is so much fun! We have not been to a show since forever." Hilda said.  
  
"I hope they are good." Melfina said.  
  
"Lady, they better be good." Hitoriga shouted from below. "Doc" Fred Luo enters with Twilight Suzuka on his arm. The women exchange uneasy nods. "Suzuka, you know the Starwinds." Fred said as they sit and Gilliam enters with Mayor Horis and his wife. "Gene, this is Mayor Horis and his wife."  
  
"Your reputation precedes you. I wonder-"  
  
"Not a prayer. Nice meeting you." Gene said. While the orchestra tunes up and the crowd's excitement rises. Gilliam sits next to Gene, pointing out the Kei Pirates and giving a thumbnail sketch of each one. "Well everybody is here except Old Man McDougal. Got the claw, Hanmio, Yase, Rob and Butch Kane, Harry McDougal is the youngest. Wild one. Then there is Unak. They all hate breeding, but he hates them special. Hitoriga, Unak. That is Clyde's little deputy Tobigiera. Follows the Kei Pirates around like a bitch. And the big boys: Marx, he is McDougal's nimrod, the one that looks like an actor, that is Ron McDougal. Best Gunman and oldest McDougal alive they say. He is kind of different. Ron is the only one he talks to. I mean they are all rough boys, but Ron... I do not know. I really do not." Gilliam said. The house lights dim. The audience hushes. A spotlight hits easel at the end of the stage: "Professor Hazanko and his ballet of gravity." Out in the audience, Yase groans. "Professor Hazanko? Oh hell, I seen him in Blue Heaven. He catches stuff." The curtain goes up. Professor Hazanko, a first rate juggler in a cloak steps out and starts tossing axes in the air. The audience starts cheering but the Professor's rictus-like smile never changes. Having seen enough, Unak stands up and shouts. "Hey professor! Catch this!" Unak raises his castor pistol and fires. An axe explodes in the Professor's hand. Screams and scattered laughter in the audience. The Professor Hazanko is frozen in utter shock, staring at the bullet graze on his hand and saying out loud: "They shot me! I do not believe it!" A chord of music and the curtain drops like stone. Applause...  
  
The other actors hustle the Professor off the stage, appalled. The first actress turns to the handsome, slightly raffish classical tragedian. "My goodness, they are shooting at us!" The first actress said.  
  
"The only thing we can do, dear--be good. In any event, at least we will not have to wait for our notices. Exciting is it not? Now this is theater!  
  
More music and another card reads: "Selections from the Tragedian in Excelsis" The curtain rises and the Tragedian steps out, a blue velvet cloak wrapped resplendently about him like a toga. In the audience, Harry McDougal's mouth drops. "Prettiest man I ever saw." The Tragedian throws open his cloak, revealing his lithe form in doublet and tights. The whores in the gallery hoot and cheer. The Tragedian bows. "How come he is not wearing no pants?" Unak asked as Yase points to the whores. "That is how come."  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen, the introduction from Romeo and Juliet. Two households, both alike in dignity in fair verona. Where we lay our sins from ancient grudge to new mutiny. where civil blood make civil hands unclean-" Another gunshot and a bullet spangs into the column next to the tragedian with a shower of plaster. Without missing a beat, the tragedian casually flicks a chunk off his shoulder and continues. "From forth, the fatal lines of these two foes. A pair of star crossed lovers take their life." In the audience Unak holsters his smoke castor pistol reflectively. "He has got nerve, I will say that. What do you think, Tobigiera?"  
  
"Oh, he is wonderful!" Starry-eyed Tobigiera answers without thinking. "Uh-oh, looks like somebody is in love." Raw laughter from the other Kei Pirates. Tobigiera sinks in his seat. "Let him alone." Harry McDougal said. On stage the tragedian is in full cry, giving the local a slice of the ripest ham. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers: For he today that sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother: be he never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen in now a-bed shall think themselves accurs they were not here. And hold their manhood cheap while any speaks. That fought with us upon that day!" Wild applause and cheering. The tragedian bows with elaborate modesty. "That is great! That is our kind of stuff!" Harry McDougal said. The curtain falls. Another card: "The Devil's Bargain" and the orchestra whirls into "Rise of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner, the rising curtain revealing a wild pained backdrop, all black and red, covered with weird, Beardsley-esque designs and images of death and damnation. A light comes up, revealing an ancient priest sitting alone with his books and documents. Then a hooded man dances across the stage, slender and lissome in paned black doublet and breeches and black hose, tempting the old man with images of wealth and youth in the form of a shimmering blone ballerina. The old priest succumbs, signing the hooded man's contract. The audience watches in rapt attention, especially the Kei Pirates. "He is going to sum up short on that one." Jukai said.  
  
"You know what I would do? I would take the deal then crawfish and drill that old man in the ass. How about you, Marx? What would you do?" Harry said.  
  
"I already did it." Marx answered. The hooded man makes a flourish. A flash-pad explosion transforms the old priest into a young pope. The ballerina flits by. The pope offers her gold. They dance, swirling about the stage in a mad waltz with the hooded man hovering behind them, mirroring their every move like a puppet master. Finally, having gotten all his gold, the ballerina drifts away leaving the young pope alone, lost in bitterness as he changes back into the old priest sitting with his books and documents. The hooded man appears over him, exultant and triumphant, ready to collect the debt as the curtain falls with a final crashing chord. Thunderous cheering and applause. The curtain rises again and the performers come out for bows, all except the hooded man. "Very instructive." Fred Luo said.  
  
"But who was the hooded man?" Gene asked. Suddenly the hooded man bounds out, removing the hood. It is Valeria Marcus. "It is that woman from the coach!" Aisha said.  
  
"Well I will be damned..." Gene muttered. Valeria spots Gene's box and smiles. Fred Luo raises an eyebrow. "You may indeed. If you get lucky."  
  
After the show and theatergoers, including the Starwind group, stroll homeward arm-in-arm down Sentinel III, all looking up at the clear night sky above. At the Crystal Palace Gene stops, turning to James Hawking. "Coming to the Crystal Palace, Jim?"  
  
"Not tonight! Tonight me and Jimmy are going to have some fun. Get moving, Jimmy boy." Hilda said as she laughs, shoving Jim Hawking down the street. "I better go with them, Melfina. Here is where I leave you." Gene said as he kisses Melfina. She grabs Gene's hand. "No, stay. Please stay with me."  
  
"Dear, I got to start making money."  
  
"Oh, all right."  
  
"Well I guess I do not have to go right now. I guess I could stay a little while."  
  
"No, no I do not want to keep you."  
  
"No really, I can stay for a while."  
  
"Just go. It is all right. Gene, really. Work well."  
  
"All right, well, good night." Gene gives Melfina another kiss and heads for the Crystal Palace with Aisha Clan-Clan. Melfina walks on after the others, fishing through her bag for her bottle of laudanum...."  
  
The Crystal Palace Saloon is pack. Track along the bar at floor level past a wild array of high-button shoes, patent leather pumps, and stack-heeled boots with jingling silver spurs. Track again at shoulder level past an equally wild array of slouch hats, pork-pies, derbys, and wide-brim sombreros. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind sits against the wall, dealing faro with "Doc" Fred Luo and Twilight Suzuka at his side, Aisha Clan-Clan on lookout while a sweaty overdressed high rolling pimp makes bets, gnashing his teeth and drumming his fingers in a fever of impatient greed: "All right, I am on fire! Black Eight, nine stinking spades. Let us go!" The high roller said as Gene deals the cards. "I am your man... You win again. Well played, sir. You are on fire."  
  
"Told you, I am red hot, I am Blazing! Now, red eight. Ten stinking diamonds. Look out! Seven Thousand! Let us go!"  
  
"Awful lot of money."  
  
"I Cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen."  
  
"You are the doctor." Gene said as he deals the card. "Sad news, friend."  
  
"Damn! All right, wait a minute..." The high rolling pimp lays a set of deeds out on the table as a break in the game. Gene studies the deeds as Aisha and Fred look on. Suzuka sits to one side, contentedly studying the deeds. "So now we are in the mining business. Turning into regular tycoons. I am going to call this one the Melfina Blaylock. Melfina will get a kick out of that, it is her maiden name." "And what a maiden, pure as the driven snow, I am sure." Fred said.  
  
"Hey Fred! Come on now." Aisha said.  
  
"Just his style, Aisha. Does not mean anything."  
  
"So tell me, Gene. I am curious do you actually consider yourself a married man? Forsaking all others?"  
  
"Well yes. Pretty much. I mean I was no angel when we met but people change Fred. I mean sooner or later you got to grow up."  
  
"I see. And what would you do if "she" walked in here right now?"  
  
"'She?'"  
  
"You know damn well who I mean. That dusked-hued hooded lady."  
  
"I do not know. Probably ignore her."  
  
"Ignore her?"  
  
"I would ignore her. People can change, Fred Luo."  
  
"I will remember you said that." Fred as he pointed to Valeria who has just walked in with the other actors. "Oh, hell..." She spots Gene and starts towarding him but he looks away, as if ignoring her. She stops. Clyde steps up to her, tipping his hat, very gallant. They move toward the bar. Gene turns to Fred. "Satisfied?"  
  
"I stand corrected. Gene, You are an oak." Fred said. Valeria and Clyde chat at the bar. Gilliam nudges Iris. "Since when did you start serving ladies in here?"  
  
"Actresses. It is different." Iris answered. The tragedian enters, dramatically gotten-up like Lord Hazanko. The whole bar bursts into applause. He bows. Tobigiera jumps up from his table, excited. "Here, have this table." He seats the tragedian near the faro game and gets him some wine. "Oh, thank you. You are very kind."  
  
"I have got to tell you, that is the most wonderful thing I ever saw. What was that?"  
  
"Romeo and Juliet is all right but they are no match for my talent." The tragedian sees Tobigiera's confusion. "Hamlet, dear friend, the supreme role of any actor worth his salt."  
  
"Here is a man you should meet. Excellent character study for you, the real-life actual hamlet." Fred said as he leans in, pointing to Gene."  
  
"Indeed, sir? How so?"  
  
"Well he hems, he haws, he talks out of both sides of his mouth--but all on a very high plane, just like Sir Hamlet."  
  
"Getting drunk, Fred Luo." Fred Luo chuckles as Ron McDougal looms over the faro table with Marx and a drunken Harry McDougal. ""Wyatt" Gene Starwind, huh? I heard of you." Ron McDougal said.  
  
"Listen, Mr. Farfallas Law-dog. Law does not go around here. Comprende?" Harry said.  
  
"I am retired." Gene said.  
  
"Good. That is real good."  
  
"Yes, that is good, Mr. Law-dog, because law does not go around Sentinel III."  
  
"I heard you the first time."  
  
"Shut up, Harry." Ron said as Marx steps up to Fred Luo.  
  
"And you must be "Doc" Fred Luo."  
  
"That is the rumor." Fred said.  
  
"Are you retired, too?" Marx asked.  
  
"Not me. I am in my prime."  
  
"Yes, you look like it."  
  
"And you must be Marx. Look, Suzu, Marx. The deadliest castor pistoleer since Vash the Stampede, they say. What do you think, darling? Should I hate him?"  
  
"You do not even know him." Suzuka said.  
  
"Yes, but there is just something about him. Something around the eyes, I do not know, reminds me of... me. I am sure of it, I hate him."  
  
"He is drunk." Gene said to Marx as he and Fred begin battling it in languages.  
  
"In vino veritas."  
  
"Age quod agis."  
  
"Credat Judaeus Apella."  
  
"Ecentus stultorum magister."  
  
"In pace requiescat."  
  
"Come on now." Gilliam said as he enters, appeasing the two. "We do not want any trouble in here. Not in any language."  
  
"Evidently Gilliam, Mr. Marx here is an educated man. Now I really hate him." Marx looks at Fred, holding his gaze while suddenly whipping out his .45. Everyone but Fred flinches. Marx does a dazzling series of twirls and tricks, his nickel-plated castor pistol flashing like a blaze of silver fire, finally slapping it back into his holster with a flourish. Cheers and hoots. Fred Luo rolls his eyes, hooks a finger through the handle of his silver cup, then launches into an exact duplication of Marx's routine using a cup instead of a gun. The room bursts into laughter. Fred Luo shrugs. Marx lets a strange little hint of a smile cross his face then exits with the others. Gilliam exhales, turning to Gene. "See what I mean about it getting spooky?"  
  
"Ron McDougal, huh? Who was that other idiot?" Gene asked.  
  
"That would be Harry McDougal, Old Man McDougal's eldest son and Ron's younger brother. You know he does not got the stuff, it makes him miserable."  
  
"Yes, and dangerous." Sitting up on the bar to see the show, Valeria turns to Clyde. "The man dealing faro. Who is he?"  
  
"That is "Wyatt" Gene Starwind. He made quite a name for himself as a peacemaker in Farfallas." Clyde said.  
  
"A peacemaker... Impressive man." Valeria said.  
  
"Yes, very. And very well married."  
  
"Oh, so that is it..."  
  
Ron McDougal steps out with his brother Harry and Marx. He looks around the town. "I feel like doing something. I am getting woolly." Ron looks up. "Hey, chinky! Come here a minute..." An old japanese man minces by and Ron McDougal dashes after him..."  
  
Later. Fred Luo is at the piano, drunk as a lord but playing Arai flawlessy. Suzuka pours him another drink. "That is my loving man. Just cannot get enough."  
  
"Enough? Never." Fred said as now the high roller comes reeling up, loud and gratingly drunk. "Hey, is that "Adesso E Fortuna"? sounds like "Adesso E Fortuna.""  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"You know, Sherry. "Fantasia of the Wind", Stinking Sherry!"  
  
"I see, well this happens to be a nocturne." Fred said.  
  
"A which?"  
  
"You know, Akino-fucking-Arai." Fred Luo plays while Valeria leaves with Clyde. "Now that wounds me. Little tin swain walking off with that white beauty. I mean it is not right." Aisha sighs. Gene grunts and nods, perturbed. Outside the others mount up but Ron McDougal stands drugged-up in the middle of the street, arms out, head back, eyes closed, luxurating in the moonlight. "Boy, I feel great! Full of that hop I got from chinky. I feel just capital! You boys go ahead. I am going to stick around for awhile and howl at the moon." The other Kei Pirates shrug and ride off. Ron McDougal pulls his pistol, spinning it. Back inside the Crystal Palace it is late, few patrons remain. A few beats then suddenly everyone jumps as gunshots echo from outside. Gilliam goes to the window, looking outside. "Ron McDougal. He is over across the street shooting out the lights."  
  
"This is great, this is just great." Horis said as Clyde dashes in, Gilliam as a sheet, Valeria in tow. "Have you been out in the street? Somebody has got to do something."  
  
"I believe you are the sheriff."  
  
"It is not county business, it is a town matter." Clyde said. Outside Ron McDougal starts taking potshots at a passerby's feet, making him dance down the street and scurry for cover. Ron cackles. Inside Gilliam turns uneasily to Gene. "Why do you not just leave it the hell alone?"  
  
"No, I got to do something. I do not suppose you would --" Gilliam said.  
  
"None of my business, Gilliam." Gene said as he keeps dealing, Fred keeps playing. Gilliam draws himself up and exits. Outside, Ron McDougal reloads and keeps shooting. Gilliam steps out into the street. He feels a sense of inverted terror as he draws his gun and sees that his hand is trembling. He crosses the street, coming up behind Ron McDougal. "Hey, Ron? Come on now, boy..." Ron spins around as Gilliam's gun stares him in the face. "Well, hello, Gilliam!" Ron said, while back in the bar, Gene puts his cards down, looking over at Fred. "Maybe I should go out there."  
  
"You will or you will not. Do not look at me. I am going to sleep." Fred said as he lays his head down on the keys and passes out. Gene frowns for a moment. Finally he stands, turning to Morgan. "Go wake up Jim. Iris, lend me a sidearm, will you?" Iris hands Gene a castor sidearm from under the bar. Outside Gilliam covers Ron McDougal, trembling harder now. An adrenaline rush in a man Gilliam's age is hard to look at, he seems so frail, so vulnerable. Even his voice has a quavering edge to it. "Hand that over. Come on now."  
  
"Why sure, pops. I am only having fun. Here she is." With a reassuring smile, Ron McDougal holds his pistol out butt-first. Gilliam reaches for it, visibly relieved. But quick as a cheetah Ron spins it around and fires point blank in Gilliam's chest, blowing him over backward, the blast so close it sets his clothes on fire. Ron McDougal turns just as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind flashes in and and slams him over the head with his sidearm barrel, laying him out in a groaning heap. Gene glances at Gilliam lying semi-conscious in the street, chest heaving, eyelids fluttering, making little bird-like sounds, smoke rising from his smoldering shirt and vest. A few patrons run and sees the marshal dead. "Get a rope! Strangle him!" an old patron said.  
  
"Nobody is hanging anybody." Gene said.  
  
"He just killed the marshal."  
  
"He will stand trial for it, now get back!" Gene said as Mayor Horis runs up. "Put his clothes out." Horis pats the embers out in Gilliam's clothes but as Gene starts to haul Ron McDougal up he suddenly finds himself surrounded by Harry McDougal, Yase and two other Kei Pirates. "Turn him loose." Harry said.  
  
"He just killed a man." Gene said.  
  
"He said to turn him loose." Yase said.  
  
"Well I am not so go home."  
  
"I swear, lawdog, if you do not step aside, we will tear you apart." The Kei Pirates tense up, ready for action. Gene holds his grounds, his hard, steady gaze zeroing in on Harry. "You. Come here a second." Harry steps up, full of brass. Without warning Gene jabs the muzzle of his pistol into his forehead, snapping his head back. Gene cocks the pistol. The other Kei Pirates hush. Harry freezes. Gene's eyes bore into him. "You die first, understand? Your friends might get me in on a rush but not before I turn your head into a wheel barrel. Understand?" Harry stands stock still. Yase steps forward, undaunted. "He is bluffing! Let us rush him!"  
  
"No, he is not bluffing."  
  
"Not as dumb as you look, Harry. Now tell them to get back." Gene said.  
  
"Go on!" Yase takes a step forward. "Yase! He will kill me." The Kei Pirates poise themselves, ready to start. "And you, music lover, you are next." Again a hush. Fred Luo stands behind Gene with Twilight Suzuka, still drunk, but with his .38 trained on Yase. Yase sneers with his hand on his knife, tucked into his black sash. "Hell, the drunk piano player. Fred Luo is so drunk he cannot hit nothing. In fact, he is probably seeing double." Fred Luo pulls out his .45, training it too, on Yase. "I have two castor guns. One for each of you." Yase pauses, chastened. Suddenly a castor flare is shot in the sky as James Hawking and Aisha Clan-Clan bull their way through the crowd from behind with shotguns. "All right, look out! Break it up. Go home, all of you, go home now..." This breads the group's will and things suddenly calm down dramatically as the Kei Pirates disperse. Gene lowers his pistol, having a sigh of relief as he pulls the still-groggy Ron McDougal to his feet and hauls him reeling toward the Sentinel III jail. "Come on, you..."  
  
"Crack me back of the head like some damn bull. Hell, you are not no fighting man, you are just a damn cop."  
  
Later. As the Starwinds and Fred Luo step out on the sidewalk they can see the semi-conscious Ron McDougal through the front door of the jail laying in one of the cells, holding a bloody hankerchief to his head. Gene closes the door, locks it, gives Horis the keys. "There. He will keep until morning." The street is quiet as they start back toward the Crystal Palace. Jim and Aisha following at a discreet distance, smirking. "Keep your eye on that brass ring. Do not let anything side-track you." Jim said.  
  
"I know, I need a keeper." Gene said. Meanwhile across the street at the hotel Valeria turns to Clyde. "Well I guess you can see, never a dull moment. Maybe you should stay around to see what happens next. Who knows? You might find a future here."  
  
"Maybe even my destiny." Valeria said.  
  
It is dawn now, Sheriff Clyde, opens Ron McDougal's cell, The Kane Brothers approach to his cell, and wake him up. "Ron, Come on." Death Rob wakes his boss up. Ron still wooly from last night, gets out of the cell and outside the sheriff's office. Butch Kane in furious mood, walks up to Clyde. "You give Ron back his castor guns."  
  
"Not until he sobers up." Clyde said.  
  
"Wearing that badge, does not make you right. Who the hell do you think you are?" Death Rob said as they both walk out of the office. Ron mounts on his horse, while the Kane Brothers bump into "Wyatt" Gene Starwind. "Watch the way you walk, you ignorant bastard!"  
  
"Easy, kid. I am sorry." Gene said as Death Rob walk in his face.  
  
"I am not your kid, and I am not sorry. You take sorry and shove it up your ass." Gene stands steely-eyed at Death Rob Kane, he opens up his coat, to reveal that he is unarmed. "I will fight you right now." and with swift action, Gene grabs his sidearm and slams him in the head. and in a bad mood, Ron McDougal approaches to Gene in a furious mood. "God damn it. You are going to bleed. You got a fight coming.. Coming real soon. Hyah!" The Kei Pirates ride off back to their camps. to begin preparations soon. "Bastard! It is coming!" Butch Kane shouted.  
  
In the Crystal Palace Saloon, Aisha's hound sleeps in the corner while Jim Hawking and Aisha Clan-Clan shoot pool. Gene looks on. "...but he says did I actually see it happen and I said, no, when I arrived Gilliam had already been shot. So the judge said, you cannot have a murder without a witness--case dismissed. Can you beat it? After all that. Oh hell, who cares, none of my business anyways." Gene said as Horis enters, frowning and anxious, just as Aisha sinks a shot. "Damn, I love this game. When we are finally set we got to each have a billiard room in our houses."  
  
"Excuse me, Gene, just a moment, please I wanted to try and reason with you. We still have not found a marshal and--"  
  
"Come on Mayor, he already told you no." Jim interrupted.  
  
"What about you, Jim? You were a lawman."  
  
"I am busy. We are all busy. Sorry, Mayor, but you are really barking up the wrong tree." Jim said.  
  
"You tell them, Jim." Gene said as Horis exits shaking his head. They keep playing after a single beat. "You know I was thinking, maybe we should open our own place. That is the real money. Build it up, milk it for all it is worth, then sell it off for a bundle and breeze out of this burg with more money then Roger Smith and ready to live like kings. Let us you and me take a walk around town, Jim, see if we can scout us out a couple of nice lots." Gene said.  
  
"I cannot hardly believe it. It is working out just like you said, Gene. We are looting this burg six ways through wednesday." Jim said.  
  
"Pretty fun too, is it not?"  
  
"Kind of, actually, yes. I got to admit."  
  
James Hawking and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind walk down a quiet, tree-shaded lane on the outskirts of town. Suddenly a rubber ball rolls into their path. A small youngster plays in the front yard of a nearby cottage. Gene and Jim approach as Jim returns the ball to the kid. "What are you up to today, son?" Jim asked the kid. he stands stock still, staring at the men in silence. "Cat got your tongue?" Gene asked. He turns and walks back to the street without another word. "Wait a minute, Jim! Where are you going?" Jim keeps going. Gene starts chasing after him, leaving the mother and child in confusion.  
  
James Hawking hammers down a law notice of using deadly weapons in the town. Aisha Clan-Clan stands next to him helping Jim put them down on several parts of the city. Jim finishes, hands Aisha the hammer as the citizens shout and yell at them, each one with a castor rifle, pistol, etc. They both walk toward the citizens and announces to them about the new law. "Hold on a minute! Wait a minute, calm down and listen to me." the citizens paused and listen to what James Hawking has to say. "Nobody is saying you cannot own a castor gun. Nobody is even saying you cannot carry a castor gun. All we are saying is you cannot carry a castor gun in town." The citizens of Sentinel III continue yelling and arguing at Jim and Aisha. "That is not so bad, is it?" Jim said as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind rides down on his stallion to where his friends are. He dismounts and marches towards them. "Listen, Mayor Horis, I have to talk to you about this." Clyde said.  
  
"No, we do not have to talk. You can read, can you not?" Horis said. "It is a town matter, not county."  
  
"What the hell are you doing? I told you we were not getting involved." Gene said.  
  
"You got us involved when you brought us here." Jim said.  
  
"Now, you hold on a minute, Jim!"  
  
In tight on a gleaming silver shield, "Town Marshal, Sentinel III, A.T."pull back to reveal it pinned to Jim's breast. He sits by his parlor hearth with Aisha at his side. Gene sits opposite with his head in his hands. "Hold on, nothing. I could not help it, Gene. I looked at that woman and it was just like somebody stabbed me in the stomach. I mean these people are afraid to even walk down the street and I am trying to make money off it like some kind of god damn vulture. That is not me, that is somebody I do not even know. If we are going to have a future in this town... it has got to have some law and order."   
  
"Jim, please. Do not do this to me." Gene said.   
  
"It has nothing to do with you, Gene. It is---" Before Jim could finish Gene interrupted.   
  
"Nothing to do with me? I am your partner and friend for christ's sake. God, I do not believe this." Gene said and turns to Aisha. "Talk to him, will you? or at least hit him in the head." there was no answer from the Ctarl Ctarl and Gene pauses in shock. "Oh no, do not tell me... not you too." Aisha looks down in silence. then she pulls back her coat, revealing the marshal's badge on her vest and Gene began to groan.   
  
"Like you said, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind. We are partners and friends. You got to back your friend's play. Just like I figured you would." she said.   
  
"Listen to me, both of you. This is no good. This is trouble we do not need. For the first time in our lives we got a chance to stop wandering and finally be a family. Do this and you throw it all away. You saw what happened to Gilliam."   
  
"Come on, we are not about picking fights. Just gonna keep a little law and order, that is all." said Aisha.   
  
"Yeah, and?" Gene asked.   
  
"Like you said, just we got to know how to handle them. Old Gilliam was not up to it. We know what we are doing, Gene."   
  
"All right, say you are right, say you do not get yourselves killed. There is something else." he then turned to Aisha, "It is too late for Jim, he already rolled his bone. But it is not too late for you, Aisha."   
  
"What are you talking about?" Aisha asked. Gene exhales wearily then crouches down in front of his friend, looking deep in his eyes, his voice soft, plaintive.   
  
"All the years I been into bounty hunting, I was only ever mixed up in five shootings. Just five. three men lost their lives. It was not my fault, just doing my job. I do not even know if it was my bullet that dropped them, but... I do not know, it is sort of hard to explain. At first I just felt funny, you know, kind of clammy inside. But when it finally sunk in what I would done... Believe me, girl, you do not ever want to feel that way. Not ever." Gene paused for a moment, removing his belt with his castor pistols and bullets of his waist, handing them over to Jim and continued. "I did not even make a dent, did I? and you two are making a big mistake." 


	3. The McDougals Retaliate And The Downfall...

Armed with a borrowed castor pistol and carbine, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind gallops through the desert on one of his other big black stallions, eyes scanning the tracks beneath him. He rides up and stops at a well near a large ranch house. He dismounts, studying tracks as rancher Leilong rides up, strong, noble-looking, like something from a Megumi Hayashibara canvas. Gene nods as Leilong nods back. "This Leilong's ranch?"  
  
"That is right. And I am Leilong."  
  
"You seen anything of a man on horseback leading a black stallion?" Gene asked. Leilong suddenly falls silent, looking at the ground nervously. "Well you must have seen something, the trail runs right by the corral." There was no answer and Gene continues. "Oh, I see. So it must have been a Kei Pirate, right? Really got you people treed, do they not?"  
  
"Look, mister. It is fine for you boomtowners to court trouble, you are just passing through. We cattlemen got to live here. The best I can do is point you up to the cut. That is their roost." Gene nods his thanks. Leilong looks down, ashamed. Gene stares at him a moment. There is something genuinely troubling about so strong a man living in fear. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind rides on, shaking his head...  
  
A small camp near a clump of trees. Swanzo brews coffee while Mikey leans against a fallen oak log feeding an eager pack of mongrels from a block of jerky as Gene rides up. "Run for your lives, boys! It is that great two-gun bloodhound from Farfallas!" Swanzo shouted.  
  
"Swanzo, is it not? Listen, you seen a black stallion with--"  
  
"Look, I got a rule. I do not talk to the law. Bloodhounds neither." Swanzo interrupted.  
  
"I am not a lawdog, I am just a private citizen getting my stallion back." Gene explained.  
  
"Well in that case, I saw your stallion. Shimi was taking him up to the canyon to show him off. The boys are all up there right now, branding. And in a mood. Still want your property back, private citizen?"  
  
Gene and Swanzo ride along side-by-side through the hills. "So what about you Kei Pirates anyway?" Gene asked.  
  
"If I had to explain it you would not understand. Just say we are brothers to the flesh."  
  
"Yes, but some of the things they say you pirates have done..."  
  
"There are all kinds of stallions. Are there not? Same with Kei Pirates. What they do is their affair. I do not preach and I do not judge. I am no dog-catcher."  
  
A wide plateau in the canyon dotted with tents, water and fee troughs, rope corrals, etc. Kei Pirates cut out boars while others crouch around fires, cooking, looking up with naked hostility as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind rides up. Swanzo points to the edge of camp where Gaki is carrying Gene's stallion. "You seem like a nice fellow. I should have known you better. Had you lived." Swanzo said as Gene rides on, making for Gaki. Harry McDougal steps up with Unak, the giant whole-breed. They walk alongside Gene's path. "Hey, law-dog. What the hell are you doing here?"  
  
"How about I just drag you off that horse and eat your blood well done?" Unak said. Gene ignores them, riding up to within 30 feet of Gaki and dismounting. Gaki looks up, supremely confident and concerned. "Where did you get that stallion?"  
  
"Beauty, is he not?" Gaki said.  
  
"I asked where you got him."  
  
"Where do you think? I stole him." Everybody laughs and more Kei Pirates gather, jeering as Gene steps closer. "Look, I do not want any trouble with you but that is my stallion and I am here to have him back. One way or another."  
  
"Come and get him."  
  
"Look kid, I know what it is like, I was a kid, too. Even stole a billion wong once. But you cannot --"  
  
"Do not sweet-talk him, make a move." Harry said.  
  
"Yes, go ahead, mister. Make a move." Unak said. Gaki steps back, poised. Harry and Unak do the same. 2 more Kei Pirates move up behind him. now it seems on the brink of explosion when Ron McDougal suddenly in on his mare, majestic and 8 times life size as he pulls back and skids to a stop in front of Gene, raising a giant roostertail of dust, making everyone but Gene recoil. "Give him his stallion, Gaki."  
  
"Come on, Ronny! Do not let him--" Harry said.  
  
"Shut up. Give him his stallion, Gaki." Ron interrupted. Gaki reluctantly hands over the leadline. Gene mounts and rides off with Ark Manaf. in tow, Ron McDougal riding alongside. "Feel bad about old Gilliam. Just cannot hold back when I am feeling woolly. Still, feel kind of bad. But now we are square. Anyway no use for holding a grudge. I deserved a rap in the head."  
  
"Make you a deal. My friend Jim Hawking took over the Marshal's office in Sentinel III. Got it in his head he is going to make the place safe for the widowed and orphans. You and your boys stay out of his way, I will make sure he stays out of yours."  
  
"Fair enough. You know I got to admit, you got a lot of spunk on you coming up here like this."  
  
"They were all going to jump me back there. What ever happened to one against one?"  
  
"It is not our way. We go all on one, one on all. Fight one of us, you fight us all. That is the Kei Pirate way."  
  
"And how come you call yourselves Kei Pirates? Pirates rob treasure and ride the seas for the brand."  
  
"Oh, we ride for a brand all right." Ron McDougal said as he gives Gene the one-finger salute. "This brand. How about you?"  
  
"This brand." Gene said as he points his thumb at himself.  
  
"We are going to get along just fine." Ron said.  
  
A lazy afternoon in Sentinel III. Gene Starwind, James Hawking, Aisha Clan-Clan and Mayor Horis lounge in front of the hotel. "I cannot thank you enough. Since you took over there has not been a single problem. We are finally becoming a civilized town." Horis said.  
  
"Nothing to it."  
  
"Maybe I jumped the castor. Maybe those Kei Pirates are not near as bad as they are painted. You know I was thinking, there is a lot of business in the cow business."  
  
"Wait a damn minute, you thinking of getting in bed with the Kei Pirates?" Jim asked.  
  
"Business is business. Do not have to love them to work with them. Not if there is money in it." Gene said.  
  
"You are the one, Gene. You sure are." Jim said.  
  
Old Man McDougal leads 2 other Kei Pirates with a herd through the rocky canyon, slipping a flask and singing as the first castor shot rings out from the rocks above, becoming a fusillade. When the dust settles, all are dead except Old Man McDougal who lies pinned under his horse, semi-conscous. Figures emerge from the shadows. It was the rurales led by the young rurale from the Sentinel III canyon. He bends down to the dazed Old Man McDougal, speaking carefully. "The old one you kill. This was my father." the young rurale said as Old Man McDougal suddenly sits up. "What, and I am suppose to tremble? Kiss my ass, Heiphung." Hissing gleefully, he jams a derringer under the rurale's chin and fires, blowing off his hat as he falls. The others rurales fire, emptying their guns into Old Man McDougal as if he were some monstrous rattlesnake that might bite them...  
  
Ron McDougal and the other Kei Pirates are by the fire, passing a bottle as Unak gallops up and dismounts, breathless. "Old Man McDougal is dead! Ambushed in Heiphong Canyon. Heiphung's got him." In tight on Ron McDougal as the news sinks in. He clenches his fist in rage, then bites a knuckle, getting his control back. "All right, first thing is first: It is my outfit now, I am running the show. Yase is number two man."  
  
"Your outfit? I am next in line." Harry said.  
  
"You do not got enough in your britches. Think you can prove otherwise, go ahead." Seeing with humiliation, Harry mounts up and rides off. "Anybody else?" Ron said. There was no takers as Ron McDougal turns back to business. "All right, Gaki, go after Harry and cool him off then go find the Kanes, tell them what happened and keep an eye on things. Yase and Jukai, too. The rest of you come with me. We are going to Heiphong." They mount in an army and take off north like the wind....  
  
"Wyatt" Gene Starwind is up on his stallion, riding along the foot of a high hill. Coming to a ledge, he suddenly stops. Valeria is 120 yards up ahead, gorgeously impressive in a blue velvet riding habit, riding side-saddle towards the ledge on a pretty white mage. "Aw, hell..." Looking for an escape, Gene turns down a narrow trail on the side of the ledge. He follows it as it winds around the hill then abruptly drops back down and comes out on the other side of the ledge right in front of Valeria. "Well, hello." Valeria said as she waves. Gene groans. "We have never actually met. My name is---"  
  
""Wyatt" Gene Starwind, I know." Valeria interrupted. "I was beginning to think we would never meet. This is fortuitous. That means luck."  
  
"I know what it means." Gene said as his stallion suddenly groans nervously, throwing it's head, aroused by the presence of the mare. "What is it?" Valeria asked.  
  
"Easy now... That mare is in season." Gene said as Valeria calms her horse down.  
  
"Oh... Now she is starting. How do they know?"  
  
"They know. It is the scent. We better split them up."  
  
"I have a better idea, let us run it out of them!" Before Gene can stop her she is off at a full gallop. Gene pauses, debating with himself. "Yes, I am an oak all right." He takes off at a dead run. Catching up, the horses find their rhythm, breaking into a smooth gallop, flying over a jet black plain of volcanic ash into a rolling meadow carpeted with yellow desert poppies, so bright it almost hurts anyone's to look at them. Coming off a rise the desert floor shears off into a wide crevice. Valeria heads straight at it. "You are not that crazy, are you?" Gene asked her.  
  
"Oh, yes I am!" Valeria answered from a crack of her crop, she streaks toward crevice. Gene grits his teeth and follows suit. The sound of their hoofbeats stops for a long instant as they take the jump together, sailing through the air side-by-side, Valeria giggles like a young lady as they light on the other side and gallop on....  
  
They pull up at a huge desert stone formation, a canopy of white sandstone with vermillion streaks swirling through it looming over them like a giant crawfish. Gene dismounts, helping Valeria. He takes his duster from his saddle and lays it on a wide, table-shaped rock for them to sit on. "That was lovely!  
  
"You know you almost got us both killed back there?"  
  
"Fun though, was it not?"  
  
"You would die for fun?"  
  
"Would you? You are laughing! I was sure you never laughing."  
  
"I laugh sometimes."  
  
"Yes, but how often? Tell me, are you happy?"  
  
"Am I happy? I do not know. Happy as the next man, I guess. I do not laugh all day long like an idiot, if that is what you mean."  
  
"You are a little touchy about it."  
  
"I am not touchy, I just, it is a silly question, that is all. Am I happy? Are you happy?"  
  
"Of course, I am always happy. Unless I am bored. That black haired woman, is that your wife?"  
  
"What about her?"  
  
"Nothing... Tell me, what do you want out of life?"  
  
"Where do you get these questions?"  
  
"Just answer."  
  
"I do not know, start a business for me and my friends, have a good life, you know."  
  
"Does not suit you."  
  
"How would you know?"  
  
"Just does not, that is all."  
  
"Well I ought to know my own mind and I am telling you what suits me is a family business. That suits me right down to the ground. In fact, that is my idea of heaven." Gene pauses for a moment and continues. "All right, what is your idea of heaven?"  
  
"Adventure." Valeria said. Gene laughs, almost in spite of himself. Valeria beams. "See? You are laughing again. But that is what I want. Go places and move and never look back and just have fun. Forever. That is my idea of heaven. Need someone to share it with, though."  
  
"You mean Clyde?" Gene asked as he sees Valeria shrug. "Then why are you with him?"  
  
"Well he is handsome and polite. He is okay. For now. Do not say it, I know, I am rude. I cannot help it. I have tried to be good but it is too boring."  
  
"The way you talk. I never heard a woman talk like that."  
  
"Oh look, I have not got time to be proper, I want to live. If that is unladylike then I guess I am not a lady. At least I am honest."  
  
"Well you are different, no arguing that. But you are a lady all right. I will take my oath on it." Gene looks at Valeria, enchanted, but suddenly his face clouds. "What is wrong?"  
  
"I do not know, does not make any sense. I almost cannot look at you. Like it hurts."  
  
"I know, me too. What should we do about it?" Valeria said. Gene takes her in his arms and kisses her passionately. She sinks in his arms as he kisses her again then falls to her knees, throwing his arms around her legs and pressing his face into the folds of Valeria Marcus' skirts. "Goodness.." Gene muttered as she runs a hand through his hair. He stands, lifting her with him until they are face-to-face and she can feel him pressing into her. "You know this is adultery. You can burn in hell for that." she said.  
  
"Then let us make sure we get our wong's worth." Gene said.  
  
Gene and Valeria loll on the rock, facing each other, and their clothes in disarray. "I must say this certainly has been an unexpected little windfall."  
  
"Fortuitous even."  
  
"And I did not even know your full name."  
  
"Easy to fix. "Wyatt" Gene Hotshot Starwind."  
  
"And I am Valeria Marcus. My friends call me Val."  
  
"Val... No, I am going to call you Valie."  
  
"I hate Valie."  
  
"Well you will always be Valie to me."  
  
"Always?"  
  
"It is getting late. We better get back." Gene said as he looks away and stands, helping her up. They go to their horses. He lifts her up into her saddle and stands awhile, arranging the folds of her skirt. "So I assume we are regarding this as just a kind of interlude."  
  
"Look, it is too much of a tangle. I already cast my lot. I cannot go back I cannot sneak, feel back enough as it is."  
  
"You feel bad about this? About me?"  
  
"I did not mean it that way."  
  
"You know you do not have to sneak. You could stay with me. I know things, Gene. Sweeter things. I could make you so happy."  
  
"I cannot, I am sorry. Forgive me." Gene mounts and rides off with a wave while Valeria watches him awhile....  
  
A Sentinel III photographer's studio behind the Heiphong Corral. A skylight overhead illuminates the backdrop as Mata, the prosperous-looking owner prepares his camer. Valeria is in the dressing room on the left of the studio. "What mood would you like for this picture, Miss Valeria? Any particular occassion you are commemorating?"  
  
"I want to remember exactly how I looked on this day so I want you to take a picture of me..."  
  
Valeria steps out wearing a diaphonous veil shrouding her from head to toe. Though it partially obscures her form, Mata gasps as he can see that she is completely nude underneath. "...all of me." Mata fumbles with his camera, his composure gone. Valeria turns to a nearby mirror, studying herself--red tresses, rounded lips, maddening eyes, and bright eyes--a light angel as she smiles. "Because I am so wonderful."  
  
Melfina lies in bed, lost in an opium dream. She snaps out of it and sits up as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind enters and gives her a kiss, glancing at the half-empty laudanum bottle on the nightstand. "Is that the bottle Hilda gave you? Better go easy on that crap."  
  
"I know what I am doing. Where have you been?" Melfina said.  
  
"Out riding. So... how are you doing?"  
  
"I do not know. I am all right."  
  
"Really? Are you sure?"  
  
"Sure I am sure. What is this?" Melfina said as Gene sits down on the bed, suddenly intent, his alight. "Well, I was thinking, we have already made a pile of money. Maybe we should just pull up stakes and move on. And we could stay on the move, you know? Just keep going, see the world. Live on adventuring for the rest of our lives. How would that be?"  
  
"Gene, what are talking about?"  
  
"Just thinking out loud. Forget it, Melfina."  
  
Dark circles under his eyes, looking dreadful, Fred Luo is at the corner table with James Hawking, Clyde, Aisha Clan-Clan, Harry McDougal, and the Kanes. Valeria lounges by the piano, luscious in a white gown, singing "The Red River Valley" in a torchy voice.   
  
From this valley they say you will be going  
  
I will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile  
  
For they say you will be taking the sunshine  
  
That is brighten the pathway awhile  
  
Come and sit by my side  
  
Till you leave me  
  
Do not hasten to bid me adieu  
  
Just remember the Red River Valley  
  
And the cowboy who loved you so true  
  
I have waited a long time my darling  
  
For those sweet words you never would say  
  
Now at last all my fine hopes have vanished  
  
Oh, you say you will be going away  
  
Come and sit by myside  
  
If you love me  
  
Do not hasten to bid me adieu  
  
But remember the Red River Valley  
  
And the girl who has loved you so true  
  
"Wyatt" Gene Starwind enters, blanching at the sight of Valeria as Iris appears at his elbow. "New singer. Is she something?" Gene nods weakly to Iris. Valeria gives him a half-smile. Gene blushes as Aisha approaches. "Gene, Fred Luo will not quit. Harry McDougal and the Kane Brothers came in an hour ago, they switched over to poker. I tried to get him to go to bed but he just will not quit."  
  
"I know, Aisha. And nobody can make him." Gene said as they go over to Fred Luo's table and sit down. Fred Luo beams drunkenly. "Gene! Just in time. Pull up a chair."  
  
"Been hitting it awful hard, Fred."  
  
"Nonsense, I have not yet begun to defile myself." Fred said as Gene touches his shoulder.  
  
"But Fred---"  
  
"I will not be pawed at, thank you very much."  
  
"Sorry, sorry..." Gene said while Suzuka puts her arm around Fred. "That is right. Fred Luo can go all day and all night and then some. Fred is my man. Fred is my loving man. Have another one, loving man." Suzuka said as she kisses Fred Luo.  
  
"I am in." Death Rob Kane said while Clyde nudges Gene.   
  
"What do you think of the singer?"  
  
"Nice voice."  
  
"That is not what I mean." Clyde said and gives Gene a wink.  
  
"Hey, loving man. You have been called." Harry said. Gene shifts uneasily in his seat. The hand is now down to Fred Luo and Harry McDougal and the pot is enormous. Fred Luo shows his hand. "Oops." Harry throws his cards down in furious rage, takes a sip of his wine, and puts his hand on Fred's hand before he took the winnings. "What is that now? That eighteen straight hands in a row, Fred Luo? Son of a bitch, nobody is that lucky." "Wyatt" Gene Starwind stiffens as the cheshire cat smile comes over Fred Luo. "Why, Harry McDougal, whatever do you mean?"  
  
"Come on, take it easy, boys." Jim said and takes a sip of his drink.  
  
"Maybe poker is just not your kind of game, Harry." Fred Luo said hysterically while Harry poured him another glass. "I know, let us have a counting contest."  
  
"How about I just wring your god damn scrawny neck off for you!" Harry shouted as he stands up, approaching to Fred Luo and Jim grabs him. "That is enough, McDougal."  
  
"Are you taking his part? Huh? I am the one who got cheated." Harry yelled while Fred Luo drunkenly takes the last of the Kei Pirates' bets. "You goddamn pimps! You are all in it together."  
  
"Nobody is in anything, Harry, you are drunk. Go on home and sleep it off." James Hawking said while trying to move him away from Fred.  
  
"Get your god damn hands off me!" Harry shouted as he furiously swinged his hand away from Jim, knocking his wine bottle down. "Do not ever put your hands on the McDougal brothers, see. Do not ever try to man-handle a Kei Pirate because we will rip your god damn pimp's heart out! You understand me, you pimp?!"  
  
"Do not threaten me, you son of a bitch!" Violence seems imminent. Gene jumps in, separating them. Clyde notices as Valeria gasps, a look of alarm crossing her face. "All right, that is enough. Jim, do not! Take it easy! Easy, Jim, easy! Harry, will you just go home and forget about it, will you?" Gene said.  
  
"I am not forgetting nothing. Harry McDougal said as he lurches to the bar while Clyde takes Valeria aside, whispering. "I saw that look on your face just now. What is between you and Gene?"  
  
"Absolutely nothing." She said.  
  
"Well that certainly was a bust. I want my wong back. Come, darling, let us seek our entertainment elsewhere." Fred said.  
  
"It is alright now, Jim. Go outside and get some fresh air." Gene said to Jim. Fred Luo stands up, taking Suzuka's arm to leave. But he falls back down dizzily, suddenly breaking out in a sweat and coughing. "What is wrong, Fred?"  
  
"Nothing. Not a thing. I am right as the mail." Fred said. Again he tries to stand. This time he falls over onto the floor and starts coughing up blood. Gene rushes to him. "Fred? Fred? Aisha, get a doctor! Jim, give me a hand here!"  
  
The Starwind group lift the unconscous Fred Luo off the floor. Harry McDougal watches out and turns his direction to Iris. "What is wrong with him?"  
  
"Lunger." Iris answered.  
  
"Yes, Well, I hope you die. God damn pimp bastard!" 


	4. The Gunfight At The Heiphong Corral

Later. Fred Luo sits up in bed, revived but looking like death warmed over, mouth gaping open, eyes swimming with every breath. Dr. Doose stands by the bed, putting on his jacket. "Your condition is a bit advanced. I would say you have lost some eighty percent of your lung tissue. Maybe even more."  
  
"So what does that mean?" Fred asked.  
  
"Four years, four days, hard to say. If you have any chance, it is to stop now--smoking, drinking, gambling, night-life. You must a balanced diet and most importantly, you must have complete rest--meaning you must attempt to deny your martial impulse."  
  
"Well, that sounds inviting."  
  
"Sorry but I am afraid you have no choice." Dr. Doose takes his bag and exits, leaving Fred alone with the abyss. Suzuka enters, going to his bedside, and hands him a cigar. "How are you feeling, Fred?"  
  
"Better."  
  
"That is good. I knew it was nothing."  
  
"We must talk, darling. It appears we have to... redefine the nature of our association."  
  
"What does that mean, Fred? You know I do not understand when you talk up in a higher key like that. You mean you do not want to be my loving man no more?" Suzuka asked.  
  
"Not exactly..." Fred answered.  
  
"I am a good woman to you, Fred. Do I not always take care of you? Nobody else except for Gene and his friends care for you like me. I am a good woman."  
  
"Yes, I know. You are a good woman, Suzu." Twilight Suzuka smiles. places the cigar in his mouth and leans over to light it so her ample bosom bulges over her bodice. As Fred Luo stares at her chest something behind his eyes seems to shut down. He takes a long drag from the cigar. "Then again, you may be the Antiassassin."  
  
The cold blue light of dawn peeks through the windows. Harry McDougal drinks at the bar, brooding. He reaches for his rifle, and leans against the brass rail. "Goddamn pimp bastards. Think they can cheat me?"  
  
"Nobody cheated you Harry. Just go home." Iris said as Harry reaches across the bar and slaps him. Iris scowls, more irritated than hurt and too tired to make anything of it. The few other patrons left look up drowsily. McDougal nods in drunken satisfaction, picking up his rifle. "And I do not take no mouth from any bartenders neither. There, you see? Give somebody a rap on the beard, to get some damn respect around here. Now you tell the Starwinds if I see them on the street and Fred Luo, I am going to send them all to hell on a shutter. You tell them that." Harry explained as he and the Kanes storm off as James Hawking and Aisha Clan-Clan step out onto the street. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind turns to them in disbelief. "What the hell is going on?"  
  
Walking down Sentinel III, Harry stops the group at the telegraph office "I want to send a telegram."  
  
The Starwind family starts to feel a growing sense of dread as three grim horsemen come galloping out of the desert toward them. Marx, Yase, and Unak ride into town, trotting by the jail with Starwind family looking on. "Marx, Yase, and Unak. Now there is six of them. This is like a bad dream." Jim said.  
  
"Just stay calm, use your head. It will be all right. Just the same, though..." Gene said as he took a sip of his coffee, paused and sighed. "Guess you better swear me in."  
  
In tight on a oak-mounted wooden case. It opens to reveal a gleaming Castor Colt .45 with an extra long barrel, the gold shield inlaid on the burr walnut grips engraved with, "To "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, Peacemaker..." This is the Castor Buntline Special, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind's legendary castor sidearm. Gene takes it from the case and puts it in his coat pocket as Melfina looks on. "I thought you swore you would never carry that gun again." she said.  
  
"Yes, well, I swore a lot of things." Gene said.  
  
Sheriff Clyde and Valeria watch from the hotel as the six Kei Pirates, all but Harry armed with castor pistols, walk side-by-side down the middle of Sentinel. "I am terribly afraid this looks like the end of the Starwind family." Clyde said. Valeria Marcus goes pale at the moment...  
  
The Kei Pirates swagger by defiantly, giving the Starwinds sidelong glances. Meanwhile, the street starts to buzz, townspeople beginning to notice that something is happening. "Here they are again. Look at them." Jim said.  
  
"Easy, Jim, they are just trying to egg us on." Gene said. Suddenly Fred Luo with Twilight Suzuka appears around a corner, a little the worse for wear in a long, dark inverness cloak and carrying a big gold-headed walking stick. "What are you doing out of bed, Fred?"  
  
"What the hell is going on? I have had nine people walk up to my room saying the McDougals and Kanes are gunning for us."  
  
A vacant lot behind the Heiphong Corral with Mata's Gallery on the left and the Diamond Palace on the right. The Kei Pirates stand in a knot near their horses, passing a bottle around. "I like to teach those pimp bastards a lesson." Rob said.  
  
"Probably already scared them to death." Yase said.  
  
"You call it, Harry. What are we going to do?" Butch asked as Harry grabs the bottle. "Give me that."  
  
James Hawking comes out of the nearby weapons office with a huge 10 gauge castor shotgun just as Iris runs up. "Those Kei Pirates are telling everybody in town they are going to clean you out. They are down in that lot right now behind the Heiphong Corral."  
  
"Do not worry, Fred, It is not your problem. You do not have to mix up in this." Gene said as he turns to his friend, genuinely shocked and hurt. "That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me."  
  
"What the hell are going to do?" Jim asked.  
  
"Wait until the wine wears off. Once they start getting headaches they will lose interest." Gene said.  
  
"Lose interest, hell! They are threatening our lives."  
  
"You will never make that stick."  
  
"They are carrying castor guns in town, Gene."  
  
"Christ almighty, Jim, that is a misdemeanor. You go down there to arrest them, something goes wrong, maybe this time somebody gets his head broke, suddenly it is a mess and it will not end there, you will have Kei Pirates coming around looking for trouble from here to Valentine's Day. And you are going to risk all that over a misdemeanor?"  
  
James Hawking pauses for a moment, thinking. "Damn right, I am going to risk it all, they are breaking the law and it is wrong." Gene pauses and decided. "All right, Jim, your call. But give Fred the shotgun. They will be less apt to get nervous if they see him on the street howitzer." Jim trades the shotgun for Fred Luo's cane. Fred folds the shotgun under his cloak. They get set, waiting for Gene's cue. "Well... Come on, boys." Finally they start down Sentinel, footsteps pounding the boarded sidewalk, James Hawking and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind in front, Aisha Clan-Clan, Twilight Suzuka and Fred Luo in the rear. Bystanders step aside, trading whispers as they pass, turning onto 11th St...  
  
Clyde dashes around the corner into the lot behind the Heiphong Corral, facing the Kei Pirates. "They are on their way over here."  
  
The Starwinds, Suzuka, and Fred turn off 11th onto Sentinel II St. Ikee Katchin and Shimi watch as they pass the grocer's. "There they go. Look kind of like preachers." Shimi said.  
  
"Yes. Or more like undertakers." Ikee Katchin said. The vacant lot starts to come into view and the Starwind group are fighting nerves now. Fists clenched, gritting their teeth, eyes darting all over the street, they look all too human and nothing like legends. It is only Fred Luo, bringing up the rear, who could not care less. Gene narrows his eyes. "Jim, you are making the arrest. You make contact, I will back you up. Aisha will back me up, Fred will keep an eye out of trouble. And keep your hands on your guns. They even look like they are going to start something, rush them. Right over the head." Gene explained.  
  
"Gene, I know what I am doing." Jim said while Gene sees the onlookers. "Look at them all. They love it. How in the hell did we get ourselves into this?" Gene thoughted until then Clyde walks up holding up his hands, reassuring. "You do not have to worry about a thing. I just went down there and disarmed them."  
  
"You did? Great, thanks. Come on, boys." Jim said. The Starwind family quicken their step as Clyde enters Mata's gallery. Seeing the approaching Starwind party, the Kei Pirates glance around at each other, setting themselves. Now at the end of sidewalk, Gene and his party can see that the Kei Pirates are still armed and their relief evaporates. Gene mutters under his breath. "Oh, great. Disarmed my ass..." Gene and the others slow their step, gathering themselves. This is it, no turning back now. The Kei Pirates spread out. As Gene and his party get closer and closer, it seems as if the very air is electric with tension. But as they step into the street and fan out for their final approach, they suddenly do look like their legend now, five tall figures in long black coats except Suzuka advancing in a line, grim and unstoppable, a fleeting moment in time frozen forever in our minds. Finally they stop. The two groups are facing each other, perhaps fifty-five feet apart. Fred raises the shotgun, the cheshire cat smile spreading over his face. Jim steps forward with Aisha, his face set, holding up Fred Luo's cane. "We have come to arrest you. Throw up your arms!" A wierd moment of confusion where nobody seems to know what the hell they are suppose to do. Then Yase and Butch Kane slap their hands to their guns. The Starwind family instantly tense up, hands on their castor pistols. Jim waves his hands frantically, afraid they have misunderstood. "Hold it! I do not want that!" Suddenly realizing what is happening, Unak and Hitoriga bolt and dash into Mata's gallery. Everyone else stands frozen, breath short, pulses pounding, each staring into the other's wide-open eyes. Then something in Yase's eyes seems to go dead and Gene groans under his breath as the awful realization hits him. "Aw, hell..." Yase and Butch jerk their pistols and the battle explodes, everything happening in split seconds as Gene draws and fires, knocking Butch down with a castor gunshot. Jim fires, blowing Yase back against the wall of the weapons office. Death Rob darts for the cover behind his horses as Harry McDougal dives onto Gene shrieking like a crazed psychopath. "No, no, please! I do not have a gun! I am unarmed!"  
  
"This fight is commenced. Get to fighting or get the hell away!" Gene hurls him aside. Harry sprints for the gallery. Rob fires over his saddle at Fred Luo who tries for a shot but is blocked by McDougal's horse. Yase bounces back, howling, and fires, the bullet piercing Aisha's calf. She drops to one knee. Rob fires again. Fred fires one barrel into the air, the blast making the horse rear up, exposing Rob for a split second. Fred fires again. Rob's side explodes into red mist, the full charge of red mist, the full charge of buckshot slamming him into the weapons office. Rob drops his gun and teeters into the street, talking eerie little mincing steps, already dead but still moving, like a chicken with its head chopped off. Yase fires again, dropping James Hawking with a hole in her right shoulder. "I am hit." Fred pulls his lightning and fires double action 1-2-3 times, hitting Yase in the abdomen while Butch bounds back into the fight, firing wildly. Jim gets up, firing back. The whole battle bow bathed in thick smoke, the fight starts swirling into the street, each man jockeying for position. Inside the gallery, Clyde and Unak watch at the window as Harry dives in. He snatches Unak's pistol and fires through the window. Harry's bullets whiz past "Wyatt" Gene Starwind's ear. He spins around, calling to Fred. "Behind us!" In a flashing move taking less than a heartbeat, Fred Luo pivots, replacing the .38 in his right hand with his big .45 then with one pass of his left hand rapid fires quick as a uzi machine gun burst 1-2-3-4-5 times, the bullets ripping straight through Mata's gallery, showering Harry and the rest with splinters and broken glass. "Come on!" Clyde hauls Harry up and they dash out the back door, Unak and Hitoriga right behind, all frantically running for their lives. Outside Yase gets to his knees, seemingly indestructible, and fires at Gene. He returns the fire. Eyes wild and bulging, a bloody hand clutching his wounds, Butch staggers across the lot, bearing down on Fred through the smoke. "I got you now, you son of a bitch!"  
  
"You are a daisy if you do!" Suzuka said as she opens her arms, giving Butch Kane a clear shot at his chest. Butch fires. The bullet grazes Suzuka's holster. Butch trudges closer, about to fire again but Suzuka drills him through the heart with her bokuto while in the next millisecond Jim fires from her prone position on the ground the big castor blast carrying away the top of Butch's head. As the last shot echoes through the hills, Butch flops limply to the ground like a ragged up doll while out in the street his brother Death Rob finally runs out of steam and pitches face first in the dirt, leaving only Yase, leaning against the weapons office, legs splayed out in front of him, absolutely shot to pieces, clicking his empty castor gun and wailing piteously as the smoke clears. "More castor cartridges! Somebody load my gun..." He keeps repeating it with sinking volume as townspeople step timidly into the street. Mata bends down and takes Butch's gun from his hand and the fight is officially over, having lasted only some 35 seconds. Gene helps Aisha to her feet as Clyde strides briskly onto the street. "All right. You are all under arrest." he addressed. Gene looks at him in utter disbelief. "I do not think I will let you arrest us today, Clyde. Maybe tomorrow or the next day." he said. More bystanders arrive, a crowd scene rapidly developing. The Starwind women run up from the west end of Sentinel. Valeria fights her way through the crowd from the east. She and Gene catch sight of each other. She grins, tears in her eyes. He nods, smiling. Seeing the whole thing, Clyde fumes. And so does Melfina who turns and walks away while Hilda runs to James Hawking, hugging him. Meanwhile Fred stands over Butch's body, fingering the graze over his thigh, jeering under his breath while Mata comes up to Gene. "You call that shooting?"  
  
"The Kanes are both dead. Yase is just about gone." "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, nods, pocketing his 'peacemaker', sadly surveying the bloody scene. "I Guess we did our good deed for today."  
  
Fireworks explode in the darkening sky as a cortege of 65 Kei Pirates in their finest parade down the street toward the crude little graveyard, Ron McDougal and Marx in the lead, Harry McDougal right behind with the three coffins and a banner saying "Murdered On The Streets Of Sentinel by The Starwind Family!" As they take places at the gravesite Gene approaches Ron McDougal. "I am sorry. If there was any other--"  
  
"I know. You just did what you had to. That banner and everything else, that is just Harry showing off. Do not worry about it." Gene nods, tips his hat and walks off. Looking after him, Ron McDougal whispers: "Do not worry about a thing."  
  
James Hawking lies in bed, her shoulder in bandages. Gene sits by her. "How are you doing, Jim?"  
  
"Fine. Better." Jim answered as he looks out the window, staring at nothing. he looks tired, older, all the fun and youthful zest gone from his face. "You were right. It is nothing like I thought. I almost wish..."  
  
"I know, Jim. I know. Me too." Gene touches his arm, a look of unutterable sadness in his eyes. This is the one thing he did not want for his friend and partner....  
  
The Kei Pirates are gathered around a huge campfire in Heiphong Park, sparks drifting up toward the heavens, faces vivid in the firelight like an ancient warrior host. Ron McDougal faces them, bottle in hand. "Here is to the memory of Yase and Rob and Butch Kane. They went out real Kei Pirates, dead game right up to their final kick. They won their places at the big table wit Vash The Stampede and Old Man McDougal. They are up there right now trading shots with them. And they will never be forgotten. Not ever. Thousand years from now there will be men sitting around a campire, passing a bottle of wine, telling stories about those boys. They are what you call immortal." They all drink, long and deep, Marx wiping away tears. "All right, first we hang back, just bide away until everybody thinks this is blown over. Then, we strike back tonight..." He tosses the wine bottle into the fire, raising the flames a little higher, getting woolly once again as they prepare for the downfall of the Starwind Family once and for all. 


	5. Starwind Reveals His True Colors

Melfina irons pants in the adjoining living room while Gene finishes shaving in the bathroom, wiping foam away from his face, looking in the cabinet for a towel. Opening the bottom drawer, a batch of small red bottles clatters onto the floor. Laudanum bottles, all completely empty. Melfina looks up as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind walks out of the bathroom, empty bottle in hand. "Melfina. What about this?" he asked.  
  
Melfina looked up at Gene, still ironing. "I do not need it." she said.  
  
"At least you admitted it." Gene dropped the bottle into an empty dresser drawer.  
  
"Admitted what, I am a laudanum fiend?" she asked. "No, Gene, I just said I do not need it. I needed you or something to keep me warm at dusk."  
  
"Look, Melfina, I know you are ---"  
  
"You do not know shit." Melfina interrupted. "What you do not know would fill a file or a draft. Damn it, I feel like it is when you are around I need it most. You are never yourself, you never calm down. Never. Everything is so stiff and dead. You always have to keep a rein on everything, even yourself. Oh, you smile sometimes, I have never seen you laugh. But there is no light in your smile for me no more, Gene, nothing to keep me warm at dusk or dawn. And I get even colder, Gene. I get so colder. What is between you and that Valeria woman?" She continued as it catches Gene off-guard. He looks at her as she sneers.  
  
"All right, listen. I can make it up to you right, I can make this up to you, Melfina. I can, I swear to my father's grave." he said.  
  
"Will you go to her and tell her right in front of me and in person she is nothing to you? Right out loud so I can hear it? Tell her she is nothing, tell her she is nobody, but dust and dirt? Will you do that?" Gene falls silent. Melfina stands, staring at him for a moment and continued. "Until you can do that we have got nothing to discuss about, Gene. Not a thing. Now leave me alone." she continued ironing pants and shirts. Gene looks as if a tall residence building fell on him...  
  
Clyde comes out of Biehn's, spotting Valeria going down Sentinel's main street. He catches up to her, pacing her as she keeps on walking. "Listen, I want to talk to you." Clyde said.  
  
"Not now. I do not have time." She said as Clyde grabs her aggressively.  
  
"Bullshit! I saw that look pass between you and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind at the gunfight. Listen to me! You are mine! Understand? You are my woman and I am your man."  
  
"My man? You told Gene you would disarm those men. Do you actually believe after that I could see you as my fiancee? You are nothing more than just a disgusted little fixer."  
  
"You whore! You son of a bitch!" A hand reaches onto Clyde's shoulder, spinning him around. Revealed as James Hawking, blue in his eye. "You do not talk that way to a female human being! Not ever!" he said.  
  
"Look, I do not want to take any advantage of an injured man but you better step aside or---" With his good arm still in place Jim punches Clyde in the mouth. He drops down like a leaf, as much to prevent any further injuries from his broken arm. Jim turns to Valeria, leading her away. Across the Crystal Palace saloon Ron McDougal and Marx share a flask, watching, Marx looking even odder than usual. "So she is Gene's slice now. Looks like we have another name for the victim books." Ron chuckled.  
  
James Hawking, Aisha Clan-Clan, and "Wyatt" Gene Starwind stand in front of the Saloon. "Dropped the prick, that was it. Sorry If I made a mess. Made a right fair mess of the whole thing." Jim said as Gene looks down, miserable. Aisha looks up at the blue sky.  
  
"It is getting warmer. I guess spring is coming fast." Aisha said. Until then Jim sees Tobigiera passing by in silence.  
  
"Hello, Tobigiera. I said hello, Deputy."  
  
"I do not want to talk to any of you." Tobigiera turned to them. "Those men you killed were my friends. I am just a nothing, but if I was not, I would fight you, I would fight you right now. So I do not want to talk to you." He hurries away, in raged fear as the Starwind family look on in amazement.  
  
"All they ever did was make fun of the guy." Gene said.  
  
"Sissy dep should have sticked around." They turn to see a drugged-up Marx stands behind them on the sidewalk an apparition, murder and blood in his eyes, hands thrusted into the pockets of his long black undertaker coat, castor gunbutts peeking out.  
  
"What do you want, Marx?" Jim asked.  
  
"I want your blood, your souls, and your flesh and I want all three of them right now." he answered.   
  
"I do not want any more trouble, Marx."  
  
"Well you got trouble!" Marx stepped up to Jim and Gene. "And it starts with you." Gene opens up his coat, revealing no castor guns or pistols and closes it.  
  
"I am not going to fight you, there is no money in it. Sober up and get some rest. Come on, guys." Gene turns to the Crystal Palace. Marx howls in fierce as Jim and Aisha follow.  
  
"Wretched sons of bitches, do any of you not have the guts to play for blood and guts?!"  
  
"I will be your huckleberry." Marx turns as Fred Luo stands there, smiling the cheshire cat smile. "That is just my game."  
  
"All right, lunger. You go to hell and die!" The two face each other, eyes blazing and about to reach critical mass.  
  
"On three? You call it."  
  
"Here it comes: one--two---" at the last possible instant, Ron McDougal flashes into the scene along with Hanmio and Yase, grabbing Marx from behind while the Starwind group steps in front of Fred Luo.  
  
"No, Marx, do not! Son of a..! Come on, Marx..." Ron McDougal turns to the Starwinds. "Nevermind him. He is just drunk." The Kei Pirates haul Marx up the Sentinel streets, out of earshot. Marx is boiling.  
  
"Let go of me! I want them spitting out blood." Marx struggles free from his fellow Kei Pirates and slams into a stand of wooden coffins knocking them down. Anger in his eyes, clawing the air, beside himself. "I tell you, fellows, even I am worried what will happen once Marx runs this outfit! No mercy!"  
  
"There is no Layline, there is no demon, I despise this goddamn world. I want to see them dead!"  
  
"Easy, Marx. You just need to get your feet back under you, that is all. Come on, Marx, let us kick south. Down to the old desert badlands." Ron said.  
  
An adobe ranch in the Hayphong badlands, small and furnished. Inside a japanese family, two children, a husband and young wife eating dinner. Suddenly Ron McDougal and Marx burst in, castor guns drawn, shouting in italian. Everyone freezes and as the children start crying the Kei Pirates feel family's sense of inner terror as Ron looks at the trembling young wife over, nodding at Marx. "See Marx, there is a demon after all!"  
  
Nightfall and the wind howls down the streets of Sentinel, kicking up dust in numeral columns. Lightning streaks down from the clouds and a thunderclap crashes in the citizens ears, echoing through town into the hills, making the horses neigh and fidget...  
  
But inside the Crystal Palace it is bright and warm. Ruby is alone at the bar, nursing a drink while Gene deals cards for Jim and a few others. Aisha looks out at the storm, shaking her head. "Damn, it is going to be one of those nights." she said.  
  
The Kei Pirates are gathered on a rise in the badlands. Ron McDougal stands before them, silhouetted against the thundering sky, castor arms outstretched, exulting in the storm's fury. He turns to his men, eyes ablaze. "All right, men. Now is the time to get pissed off." He announced.  
  
Valeria sits by the window, reading "Hannibal: The Conqueror" in her hotel room. She hears a knock at the door. She gets up and answers it. Clyde enters. Valeria began to bristle. "Easy. I just wanted to tell you that things are about to start changing around here. Lots of so called high rollers, hard cases and tough nuts swagger around this town but none of them has got a clue about the real play. None of them." Clyde explained.  
  
"I do not understand." Valeria said.  
  
"You will after tonight. Bet on it."  
  
Hilda sips tea by a blazing fire in the heart of James Hawking's house, warming herself against the storm's cold while Melfina sits nearby, sewing. "Goodness, it is a cold night. Come up to the fire, Melfina." Hilda said. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Hilda looks out the window and sees a tall silhouette of a woman in a dark red cloak. "It looks like a woman." Hilda opens the door. Valeria enters, breathless, comes into the parlor of Jim's house. Melfina sits up in shock and they gather around.  
  
"Please, I know it is awful of me for coming here, but listen, I cannot say why, but I think something is going to happen --" Another knock interrupts Valeria. Hilda goes to the window. There was a weird sense of deja vu as she sees another cloaked woman's silhouette.  
  
"Now who in the hell... Another woman?" Hilda thoughted. She starts to open the door but Valeria suddenly leaps up and: "No! Look out!" with her unique quickness she dashes across the parlor, grabbing Hilda and pulling her to the floor just as a tremendous castor blast rips through the open doorway. The chandelier overhead explodes, showering the screaming women with broken glass shards and a loud male voice cuts through the air as the shrouded figure dashes into the darkness. "Everybody goes to hell!"  
  
The sound of the castor gunshots are lost in the wind and thunder by the Crystal Palace as Aisha gets up, yawning. "It is getting late. Guess I will turn in." Aisha said.  
  
"Bundle up, Aisha. It is freezing out there." Gene said. Aisha nods, exiting with a wave. Gene and Jim keep playing, hardly noticing as moments later, Ruby walks out with Aisha Clan-Clan.  
  
Aisha turns off Sentinel Avenue onto the photo shop pass the palace, the wind whipping her coattails. She glances up as Ruby walks by, crossing Sentinel Avenue and ducking into a doorway. Something was moving in the shadows of an unfinished building on the opposite side of the Hayphong Corral....  
  
A booming sound echoes outside the Crystal Palace, muffled by wind as Jim looks up. "That thunder sure is something." Jim said. Gene looked up at his friend and partner.  
  
"That did not sound like thunder." he said. Moments later Aisha Clan-Clan walks back in, hatless with a blank look on her face. She moves with odd, shuffling steps, holding herself sideways. Gene and Jim exchange puzzled glances. "Aisha?"  
  
"Gene... Jim..." Aisha does an unsteady stutter-step, her face taking on a pleading look of panic. But as she turns her body toward Gene she reveals her whole left side in bloody shreds, her right arm dangling unnaturally by gory ribbons of flesh. "Gene!" Her voice turned into a frightening sob of terror. She starts to swoon. Gene and Jim rush over to her side.  
  
They take Aisha into the hotel room where she lays on the bed, wrapped in bandages, semi-conscious. Gene stands in the doorway with Fred Luo and the women. James Hawking by Aisha's side, hands over his mouth as Dr. Doose speaks in somber tones. "I am afraid Miss Aisha has been damaged very badly. I had to remove the whole right elbow joint. What that means is, well I am afraid that she is going to lose her arm." Jim could not believe what happened. Suddenly alert, Aisha sits up taking him in her left arm, pulling him close. "No, no, do not worry, Jim. I still have my left arm left to hug you with." The Ctarl Ctarl's calm and reassured voice buried the deputy marshall in her chest, wepping. She holds him, rocking him back and forth. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind turns away, shutting his eyes. "Son of a bitch...." He muttered. Jim released himself from Aisha's grip and ran out the door in the stormy night. "Goddamn son of a bitch!"  
  
Dawn approaches in Sentinel III, Aisha Clan Clan lies in bed, staring blankly into space. Gene sits at her side, hands over his face while Hilda hovers in the room. "It is all my fault. If I had not been so damn smart, if I would just... oh hell, Aisha, I am so sorry." Gene said.  
  
"Look, Gene, I do not want to talk right now." Hilda said.  
  
"Aisha, what am I going to do?"  
  
"For the Ctarl Ctarl's sake, just leave me alone." Aisha grimaces in hopeless agony as Hilda touches Gene's arm.  
  
"He does not want to talk right now." "Wyatt" Gene Starwind stands, backing away from his friend. He turns pleadingly to Melfina standing in the doorway, looking away as he walks out.  
  
Gene comes into the hotel lobby and freezes as Swanzo McMasters approaches. Gene starts to walk by him, but Swanzo steps into his path. "No wait. Please. I know nothing I say will fix things but I want you to know I had nothing to do with Aisha's assassination." he explained.  
  
"No? Brothers to the flesh, right, Swanzo?"  
  
"Not anymore, not after all this." Gene looks into his eyes and sees that he means it as he removes the black sash off of him. Gene looks into Swanzo's eyes and sees that he means it...  
  
James Hawking is in the Crystal Palace by himself, calmly shooting pool, his dog Ruby jumping enthusiastically at every shot as Gene enters. "Get down, Ruby."  
  
"Jim, are you insane? They are out there gunning for us! What the blue hell are you doing?" Gene said.  
  
"What does it look like? They want a piece of the Starwind family they can come and get it, I am not crawling into my hole." Jim answered.  
  
"James, use your head."  
  
"I am using it, Gene. I been wondering how the hell we got in this mess. You know they hit Horis' home, too? Shot down his wife. Who ever heard of that? Men sneaking around in the dead of night, back-shooting, scaring the women? They are blood-sucking parasites, Gene. You know all your smart talk about live and let live? There is no live and let live with parasites."  
  
"I know I was wrong. But Jim, look, we have to get out of here."  
  
"Listen to yourself, Gene. Lie down and roll or you might get hurt? What kind of talk is that? That is Aisha Clan-Clan lying over there, Gene. Our own friend and partner. Ruined for life. No, I am not going anywhere. You want to go, fine. But I am staying right here and have it out with those Kei bastards." Jim pulls back his vest, revealing Aisha's badge. Gene drops into a corner chair, defeated. Jim makes a shot, leaving only the 8 ball. A few more beats. Seeing Gene's misery, Jim softens, poking him with the cue. He looks up as Jim taps the front pocket and shakens his head a bit. "How much do you want to bet?" Gene holds up his watch while Jim frowns and raises his brows. " I just got it fixed." he said.  
  
"You are on." Jim had to lean over the table but he sinks the 8 ball, looking over Gene in triumph. Gene applauds, rolling his eyes as a bullet sprangs into the wall by his head. Gene dives for the floor as another bullet pierces the window. Gene jumps up, bounding to the door to see several dark figures clash into the darkness. Gene turns back and freezes. Jim Hawking lies across the table with both legs dangling over the edge, jerking and shuddering involuntarily. Gene rushes to him. The dog whines as Fred Luo rushes in with Twilight Suzuka and Swanzo. Gene trembles in fear. "No, no! Get Doose! Son of a bitch!"  
  
The curious crowd outside, watching through the Crystal Palace windows. James Hawking is on the pool table, lying on his side with his shirt pulled up. His dog Ruby cowers in the corner, whining while Dr. Doose digs into the wound with a steel probe, making Jim whine in complete agony. "Hold him." Doose turns to Gene as he takes Jim in his arms. Doose probes as Jim jerks violently. They suddenly hear a blood-curdling scream of horror. Hilda is in the doorway, shocked in terror and lost in utter hysteria. "Oh, no, get her the hell out of here! Damn it!" Gene said as it all now sinks into hellacious confusion with Ruby whimpering, Hilda shrieking as others restrain her, and Jim gives a violent jerk, breaking free of "Wyatt" Gene Starwind's grip. Dr. Doose snarls, about at the end of his rope. "I said hold him, Damn it!"  
  
"Will somebody shut the damn dog up!" Gene shouted as Jim takes his arm, sounding like a child. "You were right, Gene. They shot me good. Do not let them get you too. Remember about that light you are suppose to see when you are killed?"  
  
"Easy, Jim. Do not think about that now."  
  
"It is not true. I cannot see a damn thing eitherway." Jim said as tears well up in Gene's eyes. He touches his partner's face as James Hawking's eyelids start fluttering while squeezing his hand. "Jim? Jim!" Jim's dog, Ruby starts howling, long, loud and hideous and in the next moment the air is filled with howls as every dog, cat, and coyote from miles ahead joins in the mourning. Gene back away from his dead partner and trudges out onto the sidewalk, staring at the blood on his hands. Standing in the crowd around the street, Valeria sees Gene and starts for him. Sheriff Clyde grabs her as she wrenches free with all of Sentinel watching the tragedy of James Hawking and starts running toward Gene. Seeing her, Gene backs away in horror, shaking his head. "No, no, get away, get away from me..."  
  
"Gene..." She keeps coming. Gene panics and finally in desparation.  
  
"Wench! Insolent dog! Get away from me!" She pauses, unable to believe her eyes and ears, then runs away crying. Fuming with rage, Twilight Suzuka starts after Gene, but Fred Luo pulls her back to his side. "Can you not see why he did it?" Fred said. The howls continue as Gene Starwind trudges down the street alone. Suddenly he doubles over, clutching his abdomen in agony, staring at his blood drenched hands...  
  
The wagon bearing James Hawking's wooden coffin waits in the Sentinel streets, hitched and ready to go. Aisha Clan-Clan sits up front with Hilda and Melfina, right arm in a slang, upset. Fred and Suzuka wait on horses nearby. Finished loading, Gene looks around as the citizens line the street, watching in silence. Horis and his wounded wife turn away from the window of their lodgings next door, unable to meet Gene's gaze. The thin air feels charged with paranoia and alienation, as if the whole town has right now become morally paranormal. Bystanders gape as Valeria Marcus steps out of the hotel, regal and imprevious as a queen, wearing a gown like a queen's coat. Passing Clyde, he gives her nasty look and spits. She does not even break stride. Lounging in front of the Saloon with the other Kei Pirates, Yase gives Ron McDougal an enquiring look. "No, she is nobody. Gene junked her." Ron said while passing Gene, she does not even glance at him as Fred sighs lightly. "And so she walked our their lives for eternity." Without a word Gene climbs onto the wagon and shakes the reins, driving off, defeated by the Kei Pirates' power. He pulls up in front of them. They make a show of pretending to hide their castor rifles as he looks straight ahead at the victors. "I want you all to know it is all over. You won the war and battle. We are leaving and we are not coming back ever." Gene announced.  
  
"Well.... goodbye." Ron said hysterically.  
  
"Hey, you smell that?" Marx sniffs the air. "It smells like somebody rotted in decaptation." Hilda's and Aisha's eyes flare as The Kei Pirates snicker. Gene clenches his teeth, still staring straight ahead and drives on. A few more beats then Ron McDougal turns to his brother Harry. "Harry... Take Yase and finish the job."  
  
A train pours steam onto the platform in puffs and clouds while four porters load James Hawking's heavy coffin into the boxcar. Up ahead, Melfina fumbles with the luggage while Hilda boosts Aisha into a passenger car. As they hear the conductor's voice shouting, "All aboard!" Harry McDougal and Yase emerge from the shadows near the scales, crouches behind their castor shotguns. They exchange nods and start forward, cocking their weapons, squinting through the steam of the train. "That is Aisha Clan-Clan with the women. No sign of Gene." Yase said.  
  
"She is mine!" Harry said as he heads for their boxcar. "Hey Aish! Where is Gene?"  
  
"Right behind you, McDougal." They spin around as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind stands behind them, looking down the barrels of James Hawking's big 12 gauge. Yase raises his shotgun. Gene fires and Yase hits the floor in a crumpled heap, as his torso becomes a smoking bundle of bloody rags. Harry McDougal falls to his knees as Gene approaches to him, he raises his head up with his boot, pointing the star to the back of his mouth and swiftly zooms it into his lips as the blood spreads, causing Harry to scream psychopathically. Gene looks at the McDougal with vengeance in his eyes, pointing his gun to his direction. "All right, McDougal. You call down the thunder well now you got it!" He opens up his trenchcoat and reveals a Marshal badge pinned on his vest. "You see that? It says Sentinel III Marshal!"  
  
"Gene, please do not kill me! Please..." Harry cried in agony.  
  
"Take a good look at Yase, Harry. Because that is how you are going to end up." he moved closer to Harry, and placed his foot onto his throat. "The Kei Pirates are finished, do you understand me? I see a black sash, I kill the human being wearing it! So run you cur!" Gene released his prisoner and ran to warn the others that "Wyatt" Gene Starwind has returned to the law. "Run! Tell all the other curs that the law is arriving. You tell them I am coming and Hell is coming with me! You hear. Hell is coming with me!" 


	6. The Breaking Of The Kei Pirates

Evening approaches the badlands, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, along with Swanzo, Fred Luo, Twilight Suzuka, Ikee Katchin and Shimi arrive at the wagon station in Blue Heaven to prepare for their final fight in the Hayphong Corral.  
  
"The rest of us are five months out of Hayphong but we are from Blue Heaven originally." The wagonmaster said.  
  
"Blue Heaven, really? I am from Farfallas." Gene said.  
  
"Another Farfallas man! Practical nieghborhood! Step down, Marshal Starwind and have a feed."  
  
The wagonmaster's son sits at a nearby coach, staring at Gene while he rolls breaddough, slendid as ever. Just finished telling his side of the story, Gene sits by the campfire with the wagonmaster and several others. They shaked their heads. "Do not have law, do not have anything. Only thing between us and the animals. It always the way it goes, though. Only way to down a Farfallas man from the rear, the Kei Pirates do not dare face them. President O' Malley, Vash The Stampede, now your band of law. Farfallas men all and all downed from the rear by disgusted democracies. I guess an ordinary man would be out for revenge but I do not figure that will answer here. It is a reputation you are after."  
  
"If my father is my friend." Gene said.  
  
"Let not your heart be faint, let your arm be stone---that is all you need of your father." the wagonmaster said. Gene pauses, nodding, suddenly understanding the truth of it all. Looking up, his eyes meet those of the wagonmaster. He smiles, wiping flour from his hands. Gene smiles thoughtfully, moved by this unexpected encounter...  
  
Dawn approaches the camp. Fred Luo gallops into the camp with Swanzo, Suzuka, Ikee Katchin and Shimi, exchanging greeting with Gene who leads him over to the center of the camp. "You do know why you are all here?" Gene asked.  
  
"Way ahead of you, Gene. You want us to help you get the McDougal Brothers and Clyde Biehn. Everybody knows they are the ones responsible for James Hawking's death and Aisha's lost arm."  
  
"Clyde and McDougal are nothing. They are nobody. I want the Kei Pirates. All of them. I mean to break them up and drive them out of territory." Gene said.  
  
"Are you out of your mind?" Ikee Katchin said. "What on earth would make us--"  
  
"I will pay you 1000 wong each in advance and I will mount you on those." Gene takes out a wad of wong bills and points to his 6 magnificent whites tied nearby. They look them over as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind takes out a stack of warrants. "What I have here is a shelf of federal warrants. Being in the territories it is up to our discretion how they are served. That means we got the Kei Pirates without quarter. The red flag, guys. No prisoners, no surrender, no mercy and no escape, amen."  
  
"1000 wong... in year's wages. And I never even saw a stallion like that." Shimi said to Ikee Katchin.  
  
"Are you crazy? It can never be done." Ikee said.  
  
"It might be done. If we hit the campsites through the northern dragoons, the waterholes in the corral, we could take them on in pieces, run off their faces." Swanzo faces Gene. "Keep your wong, I will show you where those waterholes are. Just promise us you will finish it. No matter what happens you will see it through to the end. We will have your hand on that." They shake hands as Shimi and Ikee confer in whispers. "We come through this in one piece, can we keep the stallions?" Shimi asked. Gene nods yes. Shimi nods to Ikee Katchin who crouches down with a pair of dice. He makes a pass, two passes, and finally. "Crapped out again. Okay, we are in." Katchin agreed.  
  
Throughbreds are saddled and waiting, each with a castor rifle in a scabbard and a double-barrel castor shotgun across the saddle fork. The wagonmaster's son looks on with gathering awe as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind's men, each carrying castor pistols, face their leader. "The minute we start we will be going local and county law. If we fail the Government will not be able to lift a finger to help us. Nevertheless I want you to understand we carry the full force and authority of the law of Sentinel." Gene explained as they exchange glances, each man feeling a little shiver at the magnitude of what they are about to attempt. Gene faces them. "Raise your right hands. Do you solemnly swear to uphold the laws and constitution of the city of Sentinel and to protect it's citizens to the best of your ability, even at the cost of your own life?" All of them say "I swear to heaven itself", except for Fred Luo who rolls his eyes. And finally: "Oh... all right. I solemnly swear." Gene hands them all a Federal Marshal Deputy's badge while Fred waves his away. "You know why I am here. My hypocrisy only goes so far." Fred said. Gene shrugs. They mount up and about to begin their showdown. "Wait!" The wagonmaster runs up to Gene, reaching up and tying a red and silver silk scarf around his neck. "Your colors, Marshall." Gene nods his surprised thanks as the wagonmaster steps up. "Good luck, guys. And give those Kei Pirate bastards some hell!" They shake hands then Gene motions to his men. They take off at a graceful lope, riding through camp toward the deadfall and the desert badlands beyond. Unable to contain himself any longer, the wagonmaster's son bounds up onto a wagon, waving and shouting, spurring them on with a spontaneous frontier toast."To "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, the two castor gun man, whistling death and murder! Gene the Legendary Lawman, avenging and bright, poison on horseback with fire and lightning in his eye and thunder in his heart! Gene and his men, holy terrors and true, Five white centaurs blowing fire and brimstone! Ride out and charge and shoot and strike and cleave and hack and thrust home! Do not let up and give no rest and never call retreat till the last Kei Pirate is smashed and smote and running for cover. Best them all and break them up and bang their heads together in a bunch and give no quarter though they be eight times eight thousand!" Gene turns in the saddle, sweeping off his hat with cavalier's flourish as he and his men take the deadfall in a single bound and pass into the desert. A farming father grabs his infant son, lifting him up. "What are you doing?" the Hayphong mother said.  
  
"Someday he will be able to say he was there when the legendary "Wyatt" Gene Starwind rode out to bring the law to his hands." the Hayphong father answered. Gene and his men ride through the desert, 5 abreast on their charging stallions, glossy black coats shimmering in the sunlight, hoofbeats pounding in unison. "All right, let us wring them out!" They break into a dead run, streaking across the badlands to the northern dragoons. As they crest a rise the ground drops from under them and for a perfect moment as if they are airborne, flying across the skies like the legendary four horsemen of myths. Katchin turns to Shimi, laughing at the sheer joy of being alive. "Like flying, son. Just like flying." Katchin said.  
  
The sun starts to dip behind the near end of the ridge overlooking the campsite where on one side Unak and several Kei Pirates sit in a circle, playing poker while others recline on bedrolls, laughing and drinking wine. On the other side of the campsite, at the foot of the ridge, Hanmio,Hitoriga and two other Kei Pirates crouch over a campfire, cooking. Suddenly the cattle nestled under the far end of the ridge start bleating. Hanmio turns to Hitoriga who shrugs. "Maybe they smell a coyote." Hitoriga said as Hanmio turns to one of his men.  
  
"Go up there, take a look and see what is pissing them off." Hanmio ordered. The Kei Pirate mount a pinto stallion and lopes up and over the far side of the ridge. Hitoriga and the others continue cooking. Moments later a crashing sound comes echoing over the ridge like lightning. The Kei Pirates look up, startled. Hitoriga points out. "Look!" The stallion gallops riderless back over the ridge. The Kei Pirates exchange confused glances, all attention focused on the far end of the ridge. Then the seven black horsemen ride out of the sun, gliding like apparations up and over the near end of the ridge and bearing down on the unsuspecting campsite with the speed of a flame. They are within a few yards of the fire when Unak suddenly spots them. "Look out!" Unak shouted. Hanmio and the others turn and just have time to gasp before Gene and his horsemen slam into them with terrifying impact, the bodies disappearing under their horses' hooves. The Kei Pirates recoil in total shock, jumping up from bedrolls, stumbling in confusion, scrambling to get the hell out of Gene's way as the posse plow through the fire and roar into camp, castor pistols blazing in air, horses rearing and snorting. "Sentinel III Marshals! Charge!" Everyone freezes. A worried-looking Unak shrinks back behind the others, trying not to be spotted. Meanwhile Fred Luo leans down and pokes his castor pistol into a nearby Kei Pirate's forehead. "Say something witty." Fred said. They herd the Kei Pirates over to one side of the camp, shouting, "Get over there!", "Move it!", etc. But Unak brazens up to Gene. "Hey, you cannot come here and takeover." A loud crack as Gene's quirt lays his face open to the bone. "One more word and I will blind you. Now get over there!" Gene said.  
  
"Hey Swanzo, what are you doing?" Hanmio said.  
  
"I am not your flesh and blood, I am not none of your damn flesh and blood brothers, Now move!" Swanzo said. Fred and Gene cover the Kei Pirates while the others scatter their herd with castor shots. Indignant, a Kei Pirate sneers at Twilight Suzuka. "Bastard! Insolent Bastard! Like to eat your blood raw!" A mean look in his eye, Suzuka dismounts and faces the Kei Pirate. "All right, prick. Dig in." And then Suzuka drills him in the jaw with a straight left hand. The pirate drops like a stone. Suzuka hauls him up by the hair and hammers him left and right and left, steps around, lifts him up and swift kicks the Kei Pirate to his groin. He topples back into a seated position then rolls over a moan and passes out. Meanwhile, seeing his chance, Unak ducks down and makes for the remuda as Fred looks down at the beatened up Kei Pirate. "It appears he missed an excellent chance to keep her mouth shut."  
  
"Felt his ass go on that last one." Suzuka faces the Kei Pirates. "Get him to a doctor or he will be dead in a few hours." At the remuda Unak leaps on a horse and gallops off bareback. Swanzo points, pulling his rifle from it's scabbard. "Unak! He is getting away!"  
  
"Drop his horse." Gene said. Swanzo draws a bead on the retreating Unak with his '85 Castor and fires. 125 yards away, the bullet hits Unak's horse in the shoulder with "thump". It drops, tumbling end over and plunging Unak face-first into the ground. He leaps up, spitting out a mouthful and starts running. Gene leaps on his black stallion and it streaks forward, closing the distance in seconds Unak gasps and runs faster, pulling out a castor pistol from his black sash, Gene almost on top of him. He turns and fires on the run. A branch next to Gene's head explodes. Gene keeps coming, drawing his 'peacemaker' rifle, impervious, and unstoppable. Unak turns for another shot just as the stallion piles into him, sending him flying and tumbling him down an embankment. He scrambles to his feet as Gene dismounts, starting toward him with deliberate step, eyes blazing, long-barreled shotgun held in front of him. Unak backs up in terror, gun at his side, shaking his head. "I did not kill James Hawking! I do not even know the bastard. I was only lookout. It was for wong, they gave me two-hundred wong! It was wong!" Unak cried out.  
  
"A human being's life. Two-hundred wong." Gene nods, still coming with cold-blooded murder in his eyes. Unak screams, raising his rifle. "Go to hell!" Gene fires, blasting Unak to the ground. He advances, firing over and over, emptying his rifle into Unak...  
  
The Kei Pirates watch as Gene gallops up, dragging Unak's bullet-riddled body behind him. He reins up, un-dallying the rope. The corpse flops at their feet as they horrifyingly jump back. "Look at him. That is how you will end up if you do not get it through your skulls: it is over, The Kei Pirates are finished. Forever. So tell the others and get out of this territory because next time I leave no Kei Pirate alive. Understand? None of them. You been warned." Gene turns to his men. "All right, burn it! Every part of Kei Pirate territory!" As Gene's men prepare to burn the camp, several Kei Pirates move to pick up Unak's body. "Leave that trash where it lays." Dusk arises as Gene and his posse ride through the blazing camp, the flames lighting up his eyes like a hellraising demon... Now the possemen crouch by their fire at nightfall. Fred Luo sits shivering miserably by himself as Shimi turns to Ikee Katchin. "You know, we might just pull this off." Shimi said.  
  
"Not so sure. Something tells me it gets harder here on. We should have held out for more wong." Katchin said. Meanwhile Gene and Swanzo confer over a map. Gene points to a specific point on the point interesting him. "I know that cut. You mean there is a waterhole near the northern dragoon?" he asked.  
  
"But this time they will be prepared." Swanzo said.  
  
"We will see about that."  
  
Now what is interesting Gene is the same mountain cut where he and Valeria Marcus met. Hitoriga and a group of eight Kei Pirates ride through the deserts 250 yards from the mountain cut, pushing a herd. "Keep your eyes open for Starwind's posse. Swear to Hazanko, they are not going to get the drop on us this time." Hitoriga said.  
  
"Riders up ahead! ...four, five, six, seven! It is them all right!" They look. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind and his horsemen stand waiting at the mouth of the mountain cut. They tense, the first Kei Pirate squinting against the sun. At the cut, Gene and his men poise themselves, Fred nodding and said. "They saw us. Here they come." The Kei Pirates charge forward, outnumbering them better than 4 to 1 and only 65 yards away. The possemen choke up on their reins, alerting their stallions for action. "Wait.. wait.. steady..." 55 yards and the first shots ring out, richochetting off the walls of the cut. The others blanch but Gene stays cool, waiting, 35 yards... 20 yards... till they can see their eyes. "Now!" They whirl around and disappear into the mountain cut. The Kei Pirates keep coming. Gene's group reaches the small trail leading up the wall of the cut he used to avoid Valeria. They clamber up the side of the cut at a bounding gallop, unseen, as moments later the Kei Pirates gallop by and continue through into the desert on the other side. Gene's posse careens up and around the high mountain wall as if on a amusement park ride, following the narrow path at a breathtaking clip, the trail finally plunging them back into the draw behind the Kei Pirates. They speed up to the opposite mouth of the cut, drawing their castor pistols as the Kei Pirates gallop into the desert before them, unaware. "Charge!" Gene shouted as they charge forward. Seeing the empty desert badlands ahead, the Kei Pirates pull up, looking around in confusion. Suddenly a volley of castor gunfire hits them from behind, knocking several from the saddle. They spin around just as Gene's group slams into them head-on, rifles blazing, Kei Pirates tumbling from the saddle left and right, horses rearing and toppling over backwards. "Retreat!" Hitoriga yelled out as The remaining Kei Pirates turn and dash into the desert. "Come on!" Gene shouted as his posse charges, the thoroughbreds closing the distance in seconds. Shimi stands in his stirrups, roaring like a lion as he plunges into them, swinging his quirt like a saber and lashing a Kei Pirate across the face, making him tumble to the earth and bounce over the rocks like a stuffed doll. Swanzo closes with another, throwing an arm around him and jerking him from the saddle, snapping his neck. Fred Luo and Twilight Suzuka overtake a third, Suzuka slashes him with her bokuto and Fred jams his rifle into his face and fires point-blank, blackening his face with soot and blowing out the back of his head as he falls. Reins in his teeth, shotgun at his shoulder, Ikee Katchin comes up behind a fourth and fires. The Kei Pirate's head vanishes in a cloud of red vapor, the body dropping like a large stone... "Wyatt" Gene Starwind bears down on Hitoriga at a dead run. Hitoriga turns in the saddle and fires at him. Both sides feel a surge of breathless exhilaration as Gene swings out of the saddle like Commanche and ducks his body down against the side of his stallion, hiding in it's knee. Hitoriga turns for another shot only to see an apparently riderless stallion overtake him. But in the next instant Gene darts around under his stallion's neck and fires, blowing Hitoriga head-over-heels off the back of his horse. Gene bounds back into the saddle as Swanzo McMasters rides by, drawing a bead with his rifle on the lone survivor, the first Kei Pirate. Only a few yards in front of them, he whips his horse frantically, trying to get away. Swanzo is about to fire when Gene rides up, deflecting the shot. The Kei Pirates make it over a rise and disappear. "What did you do that for?" Swanzo asked.  
  
"So he can tell the story." Gene answered.  
  
Ron McDougal studies a map-drawn in the dirt, listening with his brother Harry, Marx, etc. while the first Kei Pirate describes the battle. "It did not make any sense. One minute we are chasing them, next they are right on top of us. We could not stop them, they got everybody. Just everybody!"  
  
"Easy now, it is only five men. They been having it their way because they been surprising you. Hitting the waterholes and that prick Swanzo is showing them right where they are. Pretty damn touching. But nobody is touching as me." Ron points to the dirt map and continued. "Next up is Black Jack. But that punk Starwind will say no, that is where they all expect us to hit, we will hit the one after another. Metallic Springs. That is where they show next. Only I am going to be there first. And throw a little crossfire." Ron McDougal grins, his coarse face radiant in the firelight...  
  
Fred Luo sits by the campire at night with Twilight Suzuka by his side, shaking and shivering and sweating. Shimi comes up and tries to cover him with a blanket. "Do not touch me!" Fred said.  
  
"Sorry..." He pulls back. Fred wraps himself in the blanket. After a beat. "You really look awful." Shimi said.  
  
"Not half as bad as I feel."  
  
"Then why in the hell are you doing this? You should be in bed, not fighting."  
  
""Wyatt" Gene Starwind is my friend." Fred answered Shimi.  
  
"Hell, I got lots of friends." Shimi said as Luo turns, and glares at him.  
  
"I do not." Meanwhile at the other side of the camp, Gene and Swanzo huddle over the map, Swanzo walks up. "Maybe you should have a talk with Fred, Gene. I do not know if he is going to make it."  
  
"There is no reasoning with him." Gene said as Swanzo points to the map.  
  
"Next waterhole is Black Jack. We could be there by mid-afternoon."  
  
A camp near Metallic Springs with 3 Kei Pirates crouched by the campfire, sipping hot cocoa. Gene's men ride up to the rocks overlooking it and dismount, unseen. "There they are. No herd though."  
  
"We will go around that way, come up on foot." Gene said as they pull their castor shotguns from their saddles and start down over the rocks on foot, creeping up on the campsite, seemingly undetected. But suddenly the Kei Pirates by the fire dive behind a log. "Ambush! Get down!" Swanzo shouted and suddenly the deadfall on the opposite side explodes in castor gunfire. Shimi takes a graze and drops with the others, hugging the rocks. A castor shell richochets into a rock at Shimi's head, biting his face with fragments, making him wince. "Shit!" Hunched behind the logs on the opposite side with 20 more Kei Pirates, Ron McDougal raises his head, grinning and shouting. "Hey, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind! How the hell are you?" Gene and his posse react to Ron's voice. The fire continues. Suddenly they see a movement in the rocks above them. "Look!" Fred pointed out.  
  
"I got some boys working around those sides of the waterhole behind you. Another five or ten minutes, we are going to have you in a crossfire! How do you like that?" Seeing the spot they are in, Swanzo turns to the silent Gene. "He is right. They get set up on those rocks it is the end for us." And now for the first time the Kei Pirates see fear in Gene's men, actual naked fear. But Ron McDougal laughs, having the time of his life. "Of course you could give yourselves up and we could have a party! Then what larks!" Ron said. Crouched by Ron McDougal, the first Kei Pirate chuckles. A confident ripple of laughter goes through the Kei Pirate line-- they know they have them surrounded. On the other side, Shimi shakes his head grimly. "You are not taking me alive, damn it!" Swanzo looks at the still silent Gene, shrugging helplessly. "Think of something fast or we are cooked." he said as they really are at the end of their rope, all looking to Gene for a solution. He remains silent. Then suddenly, in this supreme moment, a strange, almost supernatural calm seems to come over him. "No..." he simply said.  
  
"What?"  
  
"No.." And now they can hear the ether ringing their ears as Gene takes his castor shotgun and, while the others look on in horror, rises to his feet. "Gene!" Fred and Suzuka said as Bullets whiz around him. Fred jumps up to grab him but a richochet drives him back down. Gene advances quickly across the clearing, walking right into the teeth of their rifles. "No..." Gene repeats as his clothes jerk and ripple as bullets pass through, but he just keeps coming. Seeing this, Ron McDougal also stands, a weird, psychopathic elation coming over him. He hoots and howls. "Look at that! Yes! Come and get some, boy!" Ron McDougal waves away his men's fire and walks toward Gene, Castor Shotgun in one hand, .45 colt magnum in the other, blasting away at Gene. "Let me, Let me, yes! Die, you bastard..." Ron continued.  
  
"No..." Gene repeated as Ron McDougal fires again. Gene's hat flies off. He fires again, digging a gash in his boot heel. Now Ron takes dead aim with colt magnum and --click-- it is empty. He tosses it aside. Suddenly a sharp wind gusts up, making the tails of Gene's duster swirl around him like a halo as he advances. Eyes wild with battle rage, Ron McDougal quickly raises his shotgun. "Die! Son of a bitch! Die!" Ron continues firing. Gene's coattails evaporate into swirling shreds as he takes deliberate aim with his mighty 'Peacemaker' shotgun, hissing through clenched teeth. "No!" And with that, Gene let's go with both barrels. Ron McDougal's groin vaporizes, the huge double-charge of shotgun shot ripping him in half. The other Kei Pirates flinch as they are sprayed with flecks of blood and gore. "Holy shit!" The Kei Pirate shouts out. Eyes burning like twin hell demons, Gene pulls his 'Peacemaker' and fires. The Kei Pirate doubles over. Gene fires again and the pirate drops. The others recoil, their faces looking as if they are living in a waking nightmare as Gene advances on them, still firing. Another goes down. Fred Luo leaps from the rocks, castor gun in hand. "Come on!" Now the rest of the posse rise and open fire, advancing seven abreast, a wall of gunfire driving the remaining Kei Pirates off, running for their horses. Gene keeps snapping his empty rifle as the others run up. Beside himself, Suzuka helps Gene to a nearby rock, sitting him down and examining him, running his hands all over his body. The others fire at the Kei Pirates retreating on horseback. "Gene, my goodness! You are shot to pieces!" She said.  
  
"No..."  
  
"Yes, you better run, you bastards!" Shimi said as Ikee Katchin turns to Suzuka.  
  
"How is he?" he said.   
  
Suzuka looks up, amazed. "I do not believe it. He is clean!"  
  
"What? But I saw them--"  
  
"I am telling you, there is not a mark of blood on Gene." Twilight Suzuka interrupted. They look. until then, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, drops his rifle and begins to tremble... 


	7. The New Marshall Of Sentinel

"Wyatt" Gene Starwind and his men camp out by a running stream at the dead of night. Gene stares into the fire while Fred Luo crouches him, shaking his head. "I am a man without fear, Gene. I literally do not care if I live or die. But even I cannot fight human instincts. Someone suddenly starts shooting at me, I duck. But you... what in the hell were you thinking about?" Fred wondered.  
  
"I do not know. It all happened so quick. If I had a chance to think about it I guess I probably would have been scared but... but swear to father, Fred, I just do not know." Gene explained. At the other end of the campsite, Shimi and Ikee Katchin sit together discussing over Gene's survival. "Hey Shimi, you ever seen anything like that before?" Ikee asked.  
  
"Never even heard of anything like this." Shimi answered. Katchin nods. Both look shaken to the very core of their beings. "I just thought of something I never thought about before." Katchin pauses, looking at shimi. "I do not want to go to hell."  
  
Gene sits by the campfire, sipping coffee. Shimi and Ikee Katchin approach. Katchin drops a wad of wong on Gene's bedroll as he looks up in surprise. "We talked it over. We decided we do not need the wong. Took out 25 wong each, though. Federal Marshalman's fee. Is that all right?"  
  
"Of Course..." Gene said.  
  
"One thing. If we come through this alive, can we keep the badges?" Gene nods, picks up the wong and quietly moves off toward the stream by himself. Moments later, Swanzo McMasters approaches. "Where is Gene?"  
  
"Down at the creek. Walking on stream again." Fred answered.  
  
Marx crouches by the fire at the Kei Pirate campsite at dusk with the other Kei Pirates, his face displayed as a deeply shadowed mask as two of the metallic springs shootout stand before him. "We hit him half a thousand times but he just kept on coming, walked right up to Ron McDougal with that 12 gauge castor shotgun and blew him up!" the first Kei Pirate explained.  
  
"Ron McDougal? He killed Ron McDougal?" Marx starts making strange little inarticulate sounds, inhaling and exhaling like an animal, eyes swimming in panic...  
  
"He did not just kill him, he burned him to a crisp! I mean all the way in half like a watermelon! then he turned around with that "Peacemaker" and tore up ten of our men before we got out of there. But it was his face, you should have seen his face." the second Kei Pirate said.  
  
"He is just a man." Marx said.  
  
"You did not see his face." Marx looks up at them, suddenly dead calm.  
  
"You see my face, do you not?" Out of nowhere, he draws and fires two so quickly they sound like one. The Metallic Springs survivors drop with bullets through their brains. The others jump, transfixed by the insane brutality of what their fellow pirate has just done. Marx draws himself up. "By order of Harry McDougal, everybody get this through your heads. "Wyatt" Gene Starwind dies. Harry is running the organization now and He is telling you, Starwind dies. His men too. They all die. Understand? We are going to kill them. For what they did to Ron McDougal we are going to ride them into the ground and slaughter them like deers. Because this is the time where we get woolly." Marx announced.  
  
Later. Most of the other Kei Pirates are asleep or talking among as Terry turns to Leo whispering. "What do you think? I did not think Ron McDougal could be killed. I am telling you this whole damn thing has gone sourpussed. We got hands dropping like bees and Marx and Harry are flat out of their minds. I mean, hell Leo, you feel like riding against "Wyatt" Gene Starwind?"  
  
"Hell no." Leo responded.  
  
"Then let us cut out before we are screwed."  
  
"Right with you, Terry." The two agreed with one another and stole away toward the stallions.  
  
Marx faces the slimbag Sheriff Clyde, grim, intent, while he sputters holding up a Hayphong newspaper. "Are you insane?! It is front page news all over the nation. It is getting way out of hand, Marx. If things do not settle down soon--"  
  
"You heard me, Clyde." Marx interrupted.  
  
"Marx, you do not understand--"  
  
"No," Marx glares at the slimball sheriff, his eyes burning, implacable. "You do not understand.  
  
The second in command of the Kei Pirates rides up with Clyde and dismounts. "Terry and Leo cowardly ran out. Six, seven others, too." a third Kei Pirate said.  
  
"I do not give a damn. Separate the rice from the chaff." Ringo said as Clyde looks worried as Harry McDougal and the other Kei Pirates gather around. Just then Tobigiera rides up. "What the hell are you doing here, Tob?" Clyde asked.  
  
"Ron McDougal was my friend. I would like to come with you, sir." he answered.  
  
"Sure thing, why the hell not?" Marx slaps the tough looking deputy on the back and turns to Harry and their men. His unaccustomed humor was troubled. "I told you it was time to kick some ass. Now gather around, everyone, gather around and raise your right hands." Harry McDougal announced.  
  
Now it has come to full circle as Marx rides across the Hayphongian desert at the head of his and Harry's men 50 strong, armed to the death, full of fight--and all wearing Sheriff Badges, a posse of outlaws, with the slimeball Clyde bringing up the rear...  
  
Gene and his men watch from the desert plateau as far out on the horizon, as the Kei Pirate Posse rides out of the rising sun, drawing closer to their enemy. "That is Marx with Harry McDougal out front. And there is that scumbag Clyde. Must be 50 of them..." Swanzo looks into his sightscope and sees the badges on their vests. "What the hell... they are wearing Marshal badges." The all exchange looks of disbelief. "Mounts are getting jaded. We are going to have to find a place to rest them up." Gene said. Suddenly looking very sick, Fred Luo sways dizzily in the saddle. Gene dismounts, reaching for him. The rest of his men do the same. "Fred..."  
  
"Do not touch me, god damn it! Just do not touch me! Come on..." Fred said as he turns his horse, as if to ride on, then faints dead away, coughing out blood. "Grab him." They all catch him, easing him to the ground.  
  
Gene's posse rides over the hill overlooking the ranch house keeping Fred Luo in the saddle. Leilong and three of his hands ride out to them. "Horses are pretty well jagged up and we got a sick man with us." Gene explained.  
  
"You can put him up at my ranch if you want." Leilong said. Gene nods as he motions down the hill toward his house...  
  
Fred Luo lies in bed, semi-conscious, white as a sheet, drenched in burning sweat. The others look on, worried. I am no doctor but he looks really bad." Leilong shakes his head, his face ceased with worry. Gene sits down next to Fred. Swanzo motions to the others and file out, leaving Gene alone with Luo.  
  
Terry and Leo ride up and stop on the top of a hill overlooking a mountain crossroads somewhere in the brightstones. "What is it going to be, Leo?"  
  
"I do not care. Gunsmoke, Blue Heaven, as long as we are out of territory." Leo answered. Suddenly a stagecoach comes into view, making it's winding way through the crossroads below. Terry points out. "Just what we need. Traveling wong." he grinned. They spur their stallions down the hill drawing their castor rifles...  
  
The Kei Pirate posse is camped in a draw up in the brightstones. They look up as the stage rolls up and stops. Shouting and commotion as Clyde and Tobigiera approach and confer with the driver, then Clyde turns to Marx. "A robbery. four men striked them up and gunned down a passenger. One of them rode a Italian saddle, the other had a brown stallion. Terry and Leo." Clyde opens the door revealing to see the tragedian lying inside cradled in Valeria Marcus' arms, surrounded by others in the troupe. Reclined at full length, head back, he looks like the dying Caesar, even more tragic than in life. Tobigiera gasps. "Oh, hell..."  
  
"We were headed for a booking in Gunsmoke. They tried to take my necklace. He cursed them for cowardice and gunned them down. He may have been vain and a poet but he was better than the rest of you. And gentler and braver. I do not understand any of this, I only know it is hideous. You are all hideous, and he was kind, he tried to put something into your hideous hell and you killed him for it. Anyway the ones who did it are heading north. Not that you give a damn." Valeria explained. Marx shrugs as his soft face suddenly turns resolute. Tobigiera goes to his stallion and mounts. "Where are you going? Get back here, Tob!" Clyde ordered. The deputy straightens his collar up, turning to Clyde. "I am sorry, sir, but we got to have some law and order." and he rides off alone into the brightstones as the slimeball sheriff sputters. "Let him go. Who gives a damn?" Marx said.  
  
The stagecoach stops out front on Leilong's ranch. The driver waters the stallions and the troupe mill around silently while Gene and Leilong walk out. "We had a holdup. Came here to water their horses before pushing on." Seeing each other, Gene and Valeria freeze. Gene approaches to her and gives his regards. "I am terribly sorry about your friend. And I am sorry about calling you a..."  
  
"I forgave you the moment you said it." Valeria interrupted.  
  
"You did. Well... thank you." The driver jumps back onto the stage, motioning to the troupe. "I have to go, Gene."  
  
"Wait! Valeria!" She stops as Gene falters. "Bye.." There was so much he wanted to say to her, but could not deny it to his posse. He opens the coach door for her. Valeria gets in and it pulls out with a crack of the driver's whip. She and Gene hold each other's gaze as the stage recedes into the distance. "Damn... Damn!" Ikee Katchin steps up next to his leader, looking at him. "See how she breezed out of here. Like she had wings like an angel from heaven. Funny thing but I cannot remember how she looked. I can remember parts of her clear as a crazy diamond in the sky, her mouth, her walk, her beauty, how she shutted her eyes when she laughed, little bits and pieces, but not the complete package. I cannot put it together for some reason." Gene explained to Katchin.  
  
"Damn, you are really --"  
  
"A crazy diamond. I am falling in love with every second of her life. Hell, I will probably love her when I am ashes." Gene admitted.  
  
A cold camp in the night hollows of a mountain. Wrapped in blankets, Terry and Leo sip cold coffee, shivering like hell. "No fire tonight, partner. Too many Kei Pirates out." Leo grunts. Suddenly they both jump up hearing footsteps from behind. "Who is that?" The rider steps down from the shadows, revealed as the former deputy Tobigiera, Castor shotgun at his shoulder, squinting through the darkness. "It is deputy Tobigiera." The two relax and lower their castor rifles, heavings sighs of belief. "Sissy man! Thank Hazanko, we was afraid--"  
  
"I have a warrant for your arrest."  
  
"What? You got to be kidding. Look just get the hell out of this war before you get hurt." Terry said.  
  
"I Do not want to kill you but I will if I have to. I am warning you."  
  
"No, we are warning you, sissy man!" Leo steps forward menancingly.  
  
"Do not try it!" Tobigiera tensed.  
  
"Sissy man, just go to hell!" Leo raises his castor pistol. Tobigiera recoils in fright, stumbling backward in the darkness, and his castor rifle fires. Leo drops like a stone, a look of utter belief on his dying face. Terry looks at him in shock then turns to Sheriff Tobigiera, raises his castor gun and snarls. Tobigiera fires again. Terry grabs his midsection, dropping his gun and falling to his knees. He looks up at Tobigiera who shrugs timidly. Terry falls over, dead. the sheriff stares at the bodies, hardly believing it himself....  
  
Dawn arises on the front porch of Leilong's ranch as "Wyatt" Gene Starwind and his men listen to Leilong. "...brought them in draped over their saddles. Tobigiera. Sissy man. He done it. So I guess the law has finally arrived in southwest Hayphong." Gene shakes his head, hardly comprehending what he started...  
  
The Kei Pirates have camped on a mountaintop overlooking Leilong's ranch in the valley of death below. A messenger rides up with a letter for Sheriff Clyde as Marx paces, studying the set up with Harry McDougal. "Leilong has got around 19 or 25 hands. We could take them right enough but it might be a hell of a mess. Keep the place bottled up for now, see if we can figure a way to flush them." Marx explained. Clyde suddenly steps up, beside himself, holding up his message. "This is too much! It is completely out of hand! The Governor is talking about asking President 'O Malley to send in the army! Listen Marx, you have got to get this over with and you have got to do it now. One way or another." Clyde said.  
  
Gene stands on the porch of Leilong's ranch at dusk, looking through the front door to the bedroom where Fred Luo lies unconscious while Leilong and the others look on. "We should get moving." Gene said.  
  
"Fred is just in no good condition." Shimi said.  
  
"Do not have to bother about that. Take a vote. Kei Pirates or not, you can stay here as long as you want." Leilong said. "Anyway maybe you done enough. I mean you whittled them down considerable, now there is talk of sending the army in my ranch. Ask me, you done enough."  
  
"Leilong sir.* The ranch hand rides up and points. *Rider coming in under a white surrendering flag." They look up as the third Kei Pirate rides up with a white hankerchief with a few bloodstains on it.  
  
"I have a message. Marx wants Swanzo McMasters to come over to our camp for a moment."  
  
"He did not figure on all the stench this is causing. It might be he is looking to strike a bargain. If so, he probably figures he needs somebody like me who talks his language. Could be we got him." Swanzo said.  
  
"I do not like it." Gene thoughted.  
  
"Might as well hear him out. Anyways, what choice do we have?" Swanzo mounts his stallion, whispering. "But no matter what happens, see it through to the end. If you do not I will curse the day I ever laid eyes on you." Before Gene could give him an answer, Swanzo rides off with the Kei Pirate...  
  
Swanzo McMasters rides up with the third Kei Pirate. Riding through camp, all his former comrades flare at him with pure hatred. Only Marx smiles, stepping up as Swanzo dismounts. "Well hello, Swanz."  
  
"You wanted to talk?"  
  
"Yes, kind of wanted to see if you would join back up with us."  
  
"Is that what you got me up here for? A proposition to join the Kei Pirates again?"  
  
"You are a Kei Pirate, you are a blood brother to the flesh. Come back with us, no hard feelings."  
  
"Forget it, Marx."  
  
"Is there not anything I can say that will change your mind? You are going to stay with your new friends?"  
  
"At least they do not scare or torture women."  
  
"All you are the boss, Swanz." Harry McDougal smiled. "One thing, though." He moves closer to the traitor, pointing his castor shotgun to Swanzo's cheekbone. "How are you going to get back to them?"  
  
The third Kei Pirate rides back up to the ranch house, dumps a large something in front, and gallops back to just within earshot as Gene and his men run up. The object is revealed as a human corpse and though they could not see what was done to it, the expressions on their faces are plain enough. "Why could they not have just killed him?" Ikee Katchin wondered. "Marx and Harry McDougal wanted to be sure they got your attention, Marshal Starwind. He wants a straight-up fight, just you and them, settle this thing once and for all. You win, we quit the territory. Marx and Harry wins, your comrades get safe conduct to the Blue Heaven line. Sundown today in the death valley at the mouth of the Hayphong Canyon. Ride out with your escort, we will meet you." The third Kei Pirate announced.  
  
"You tell Marx and Harry... just tell them I will be there!!" Gene shouted out as the third pirate departs.  
  
"Gene, are you insane?" Shimi asked.  
  
"I made a promise." Gene answered.  
  
"Gene, listen, you cannot beat them. You are good and heaven knows you got the courage, but you are not in Marx and Harry McDougal's class. Hell, he is the best that has ever been. Except maybe for Vash The Stampede." Ikee said.  
  
"He is right, Gene. They could put nine into your temple before you could even get one or three into him."  
  
"But I would do it, I should get that one into him. So help me, I would."  
  
"All right Gene, maybe you can. But you got to die to do it." Katchin said. "Understand? You got to die!"  
  
It is dusk and the last rays of the sun come through the window of Leilong's Ranch, falling on the bed where Fred Luo lies, awake but looking like shit. Gene sits next to him, Twilight Suzuka sits next to Fred on the other side. "What makes a man like Marx, Fred? What makes him do the things he does?"  
  
"A man like Marx has got an empty hole right through the middle of him and no matter what he does he can not ever fill it. He cannot kill enough or rob enough or inflict enough pain to ever fill it. And it drives him insane. Stalkraving insane." Fred explained.  
  
"So what does he want?" Gene asked.  
  
"What does he want? He wants vengeance."  
  
"Vengeance? Vengeance for what?" Fred looks at him, a look of purest sadness in his sunken eyes."  
  
"For being alive." Fred answered as Gene looks down again and it was a long time before he spoke. "Remember how I said it all happened so fast with Ron McDougal I did not have time to think about it? Well I have had plenty of time to think about all of this. I spent most of my life since I was born not knowing what I wanted out of life, just chasing my tail. But now, for the first time I know exactly what I want. And who. And that is the damnable misery of it all." Gene paused, looking at his friend. "I cannot defeat him, can I?" Fred Luo shakes his head. Gene nods then stands, getting ready to exit.  
  
"No, wait, I will go with you..." Fred struggles to sit up, sweating and trembling, Suzuka tries to stop him and he finally falls back down, almost passing out. Gene puts a hand on his stomach, while Suzuka puts a hand on his forehead. "I am sorry. I am sorry, Gene, Suzuka. Damn, I am so sorry."  
  
"That is all right, Fred. Do not worry." Suzuka said as Fred points to Gene's marshal badge. He takes it off, pressing it onto his hand. Fred Luo smiles then passes out as Gene and Suzuka exit the room.  
  
It is late, almost sunset at the ranch. Gene steps onto the porch where Leilong and the others await. He glances back into the house, looking at the unconscious Fred Luo through the open bedroom door. "Do not worry. They want him they will have to go over us first." Gene nods gratefully, offering his hand. Leilong takes it, abashed. Gene mounts up with Twilight Suzuka, Shimi and Ikee Katchin. They ride off at a slow gallop. Four figures against the twilight sky....  
  
Marx awaits atop the hill with Harry McDougal and the third Kei Pirate watching as Gene's group rides out. "Only four. They left somebody behind. Let us go take a look." The Kei Pirates ride up as Leilong steps up with several other hands.  
  
"What are you doing here?"  
  
"Who is in there?"  
  
"It is Luo. He is very sick. Imagine he is dying." Leilong answered as Marx squints through the front door of the house to the open bedroom where Fred Luo lies unconscious, chest heaving, sweating. "Drag his ass out here, let us have a look."  
  
"I looked the other way when you did a lot of foul things but I am not letting you torment a dying man. Not as long as he is under my roof. I draw the line here." Leilong said as he and his men look resolute. Marx smiles, nodding.  
  
"All right, Leilong. I will be back in about two hours. We will see how brave you are then."  
  
"I will be here." Marx and his men ride off. At the crossroads they stop, Harry peeling off. "As soon as I am through with "Wyatt" Gene Starwind, swarm down with the rest of the Kei Pirates and finish off Ikee Katchin and Shimi." And they gallop off in opposite directions as four Kei Pirates, Marx's seconds, ride up to where Gene and his men stand dismounted, waiting. One pointing to a thicket nearby. "He is waiting for you by the large oak, half a mile up that trail." he said.  
  
Down the south road, Sheriff Clyde and the other Kei Pirates wait at the road above the canyon. 65 strong, mounted and ready. Harry rides up, full of anticipation. "Prepare yourselves. As soon as Marx is finished with Gene we are going to take care of the rest." Harry said.  
  
"Are we not giving them safe conduct?" Clyde wondered.  
  
"Sure we are. On their journey into hell!" Harry McDougal answered.  
  
Sunset approaches the Hayphongian Canyon. Marx's seconds wait nearby as Gene whispers to his men. "They are not giving you any safe conduct. As soon as the castor shooting begins kick west for the Blue Heaven line. Well..." Gene shakes hands with Ikee Katchin who now turns away with emotion, hiding his face. Gene turns to Shimi. "Gene, I... I do not have the words." Shimi said.  
  
"I know. Me neither." Gene pats Shimi's shoulder and walks off alone into the thicket, hearing the only sound of musical clinking and chiming of his spurs....  
  
A beautiful sunset yellow and red shines down the thicket. Making his way down the trail, Gene looks up at the sky as a flock of wild geese fly over overhead, oblivious to the human drama below. Gene stops, drinking it all in, as if trying to grab all he can in the time being. He suddenly closes his eyes, falling to his knees, trembling in fear for the first time in his life, clasping his hands. "Father, this is the final battle. We worked it out in my mind every which way and I know there is no way I am coming through this alive. You have preserved me this far so I only ask for one last favor: just let us live long enough to take down the Kei Pirates. It will be finished and there is an amen to it." Gene stands back up, his fear gone, replaced by calm, his face luminous, almost angelic as he walks on, spurs still chiming in.  
  
A clearing by the creek of the corral with a cluster of smaller oaks. Marx leans against a tree, sipping from a hip flask, smoking a slim cheroot as he hears the chiming spurs approach. Marx looks up as the shadowy tall silhouette of his nemesis emerging from the shadows of the thicket. Marx smiled. "Well, I did not think you had it in you." He setted himself up. "Shall we?"  
  
"I will be your huckleberry." Marx stiffens as the silhouette steps into the waning light. revealing himself as Fred Luo, pale and drawn, looking like the grim reaper himself, but awake and ready just the same as he sees his shock. "Why Marx, you look like somebody just walked over your grave. I was not quite as sick as I made out."  
  
"My fight is not with you, Luo. It is with Gene."  
  
"I beg to differ. We started a fight we never got to finish. Play for flesh and blood, remember?"  
  
"I was kidding about that."  
  
"I was not." For the final time, the cheshire cat smile comes over Fred Luo's face as he pins on Gene's badge. "And this time it is legal." Marx nods, his hook replaced by a growing malice. As they set themselves, once again their eyes began to blaze, boring into each other, their concentrated rage focusing on one another, about to reach into critical mass.... "All right, lunger. Let us do it." Marx said.  
  
"Say when." A long tense moment then both grunt in unison. Blurred movement, the flash of a gunshot. Fred Luo slaps his gun back in it's holster as Marx stumbles, a bullet hole in the side of his head....  
  
Back in the thicket, "Wyatt" Gene Starwind hears the gunshot and starts running to the scenery... Blood coursing from the hole in his head, frenzied messages flickering all through his shattered brain, going only on pure hatred, Marx stumbles and jerks, struggling to raise his castor pistol. Fred dances in front of him, urging him on. "Come on! Come on!" But finally Marx falls over into the creek next to the oak tree, his castor pistol firing into the air harmlessly. Fred Luo looks down at him, shaking his head. "Oh Marx. You are no daisy, no daisy at all." Just then Gene appears, looking at Fred in total shock. "What happened?" Gene wondered. Fred looked at him like he is a fool then points to the decapitated Marx. "Poor soul, he was so high-strung. Afraid the strain was more than he could bear." Fred answered until suddenly they hear stallions crashing through the brush toward them. "Let us go! My stallion is over here." 


End file.
